But it allegedly works — the headline that is. It’s called the Halloween Indicator. This is what Wikipedia writes:
The Halloween indicator is a variant of the stock market adage “Sell in May and go away,” the belief that the period from November to April inclusive has significantly stronger growth on average than the other months. In such strategies, stocks are sold at the start of May and the proceeds held in cash (e.g. a money market fund); stocks are bought again in the autumn, typically around Halloween.
Though this seasonality is often mentioned informally, it has largely been ignored in academic circles (perhaps being assumed to be a mere superstition). Nonetheless analysis by Bouman and Jacobsen (2002) shows that the effect has indeed occurred in 36 out of 37 countries examined, and since the 17th century (1694) in the United Kingdom; it is strongest in Europe. According to the efficient-market hypothesis, this is impossible.
It is not clear what causes the effect.
Most interesting about the effect is that it shows that stock market returns in many countries during the period May-October are systematically negative or lower than the short-term interest rate, which also goes against the efficient-market hypothesis. Stock market returns should not be predictably lower than the short term interest rate (risk free rate).
Popular media often refer to this market wisdom in the month of May, claiming that in the six months to come things will be different and the pattern will not show. However, as the effect has been strongly present in most developed markets (including the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and most European countries) in the last decade – especially May-October 2008 – these claims are often proved wrong.
That said, between April 30 and October 30 2009, the FTSE 100 gained 20% (from 4,189.59 to 5,044.55)
One study which tests the Halloween indicator in US equity markets found similar results as Bouman and Jacobsen (2002) over the same time period but using futures data over the period April 1982- April 2003 and after excluding the years 1987 and 1998 no longer found a significant effect, leading these researchers to conclude that it was not an “exploitable anomaly’ during that time period in the United States.”
The original saying is “Sell in May and go away, stay away till St. Leger Day”, referring to the last race of the British horse racing season, however this day is unlikely to be known by non-Brits so it is replaced by Halloween (which in turn is Samhain, about one-eighth year after the equinox).
This year’s miserable performance. Since May:
Watch the gap and the stairs. Read this carefully:
You’re not getting any younger. You are in danger of falling. You can fall when you get off the train. You can fall when you walk down stairs.
When you fall, you may hit your hit and end up in hospital for years, or with a metal shunt in your head, or worse, in a wheelchair.
You may destroy your life.
Please be careful. Your reactions are not those of an 18 year old any longer.
Trust me on this one. I have examples of friends who fell.
My sister and husband are visiting New York. Each day they float down to Times Square to the tkts and buy theater tickets at 50% off.
They’ve done it twice and get great seats both times. Best yet, they saved Ticketmaster’s outrageous $11 a ticket “service fee” for buying tickets online.
Incredibly useful iPhone tricks. Including
+ Double click on the shift key for caps lock.
+ Hold down some keys for alternatives. Try n.
+ Retart: Hold down sleep (top button) and home, or hold sleep for ten seconds.
+ Get a screenshot. Home and then sleep. Saves the screenshot in your photos.
+ Tap and hold images in Safari to save them to your phone.
+ Spell check. Tap and hold a red underlined word.
Full list, click here.
The U.S. Tennis Open is into its third day. Don’t forget to watch the amazing slow motion videos on The Beauty of the Power Game.
You can watch the tennis 24/7 on the Tennis Channel, ESPN2 or CBS. Make sure you’re watching in high-def. The TV Schedule is here.
Susan and I went to the Open yesterday. Scenes:
Advertisement in subway on way to the Open:
Cookies on sale:
Handsome visitors to the U.S. Open:
What is with tattoos and ear plugs? When they weren’t watching, they were eating. Correction: Many ate while they watched.
This thing is called a Spidercam. It flies all around the stadium. Note the video camera. I think it transmits its images with fiber optics. Amazing technology.
Here’s another photo of it:
For more, Spidercam.net.
Out of Iraq. Not. Our “combat” troops are out of Iraq. But we still have 50,000 “support” troops , plus innumerable outsourced, expensive hangers-on. And now we’re sending more troops to Afghanistan? For what purpose? Tro destroy Al Qaeda? Somebody please tell Washington that Al Qaeda left Afghanistan eons ago.
Harry Newton, who’s sweltering in New York’s 90 degree plus global warming. Or whatever this present heatwave is.
The fastest, cheapest and simplest way to speed up your PC -- laptop or desktop, PC or Apple -- is to replace your present, spinning, hard drive with a solid state one, like this Corsair. Kensington also makes a Notebook Upgrade Kit which includes an SSD and cloning software which works, even for Windows 7. I have a Kensington. It works, like the Corsair, flawlessly.
Ultra-tiny. Ultra-light. Best device for go-anywhere WiFi Internet access. Use in cars, buses, other peoples' offices, coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, or in your home if you can't get FiOS, DSL or a cable modem. 
Best family vehicle ever. All-wheel drive goes anywhere. Ultra-reliable. Our family has had Outbacks for 15 years. We presently have three. The 4 cylinder does 27 MPG, or so. Not shabby. You don't need the 6 cylinder. Buy the automatic. Easier to drive.
When your WiFi router is at one end of the house/office and you're at the other, plug this thing in near where you are. Bingo. Your wireless signal will be stronger and faster. You can carry it wherever you go and simply plug it in. Once programmed (which is easy), you never need to reprogram it. It remembers even when unplugged (and hence unpowered). Some places sell it for as little as $25.
My most useful travel gadget -- ever since I discovered (1) I don't need to suction it to the windshield or plug it in. It will run happily for four hours on battery sitting in my lap. (2) I can walk or bicycle with it and it still gets me to where I want to go. (3) It takes a $150 SD card which means I can use it all over Europe, though some parts of the east (like Poland) are a little sketchy. The Garmin nuvi 350 is now obsolete. From what read of the specs, the new Garmin nuvi 205 for $120 is a perfect replacement. It actually has some features that mine doesn't have, including being smaller. When choosing a GPS gadget, software is key. Ease and logic of use, etc. I like Garmin GPS software. It's much easier to use than other GPSes I've used (e.g. the horrible ones in Hertz rent-a-cars).
For 25 years-plus, I've used this remarkable text editor to write thousands of magazine articles and my 1200-page dictionary. If you need to get words "on paper" fast, this is for you. The Semware Editor (TSE) has about four million features Microsoft's Word doesn't have -- but should. Best, you can program TSE to be anything you want -- from a dictionary producer, to a list of things to do, to an HTML editor, to a super-fast search engine. To test it (free) and /or buy it (cost $99), Click 
Firefox is the best Internet browser because it's open source and hence has zillions of plug-ins and add-ons to make it do what you want it to do -- not what Microsoft, Apple or Google want.
My favorite Firefox plug-ins are Showcase, MeasureIt and ScreenGrab.