There's a narrative in the headlines that advocates expecting June to be calm after May delivered the biggest equity gains in any May since 1990. This a convenient message for anyone hoping for less chaotic news flow and a break from 2025's tumultuous market action, but summers aren't always slow, and I don’t want to miss the upcoming June!

We're leaning into the idea that June is the time to get ready for the new market season that happens every year - the second half.

Based on Ryan Deitric's chart below, every big May (over 5%) has led to positive returns in stocks over the next 12 months with an impressive average return of 19.9% which is double the average 12 month return.

More impressively, the “market signal” has been correct 100% of the time. Granted the sample size is small.

I dug deeper into Ryan’s idea and found another interesting pattern shown below.One of the years in the chart above (1997) has a remarkably similar year to date trading pattern as 2025.

A little more research discovered that 1980 and 2001 also have remarkable similar year-to-date patterns.

However, as you can see from the chart below, June was when the repetition broke down in 2001.

So, which will it be for 2025? 1997? 2001? Or one of the other years in the table above.

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