Historic End To A Down Month

It was a rough finish to the month of April. Not only did the S&P 500 (SPY) finish the month with an 8.78% decline month-to-date, the biggest one-month decline since March 2020, but the last trading day of the month was one for the record books.

Since SPY began trading in 1993, the only bigger drop on the final trading day of the month was in August 1998. Back then it was a much larger 7.13% decline.

In the table below, we show all months since 1993 that SPY declined at least 2% on the last trading day of a month. Behind April, the next worst final day of a month, and the only other month with an over 3% decline, was September 1998. However, back then, SPY had still managed to finish up month-to-date. 

Finishing up month-to-date has been the exception rather than the rule of these occurrences, though, as November 1998 and October 2011 were the only other times that SPY fell over 2% on the last trading day of the month but still finished with a month-to-date gain.

As for where the S&P 500 has typically gone from there, the first trading day of the new month has only seen a move higher 46% of the time as the index has averaged a 30 bps decline. For the full month, though, performance is generally more positive with an average gain of 2.75% and maintaining positive returns almost 70% of the time.