Zinger Key Points
- Trump began his first week with a series of executive orders targeting trade, immigration and oil.
- The final week of January has historically been a positive period for stocks.
The S&P 500 is charging into the final week of January at record highs, breaking above 6,100 points as investors digest a cocktail of economic optimism, earnings strength, and major policy shifts from Washington.
At the center of this market euphoria is Donald Trump. The newly sworn-in 47th U.S. president began his first week with a series of executive orders targeting trade, immigration and oil. Some orders have immediate effects, others are symbolic, and several face legal challenges.
On Tuesday, Trump also unveiled plans for AI Stargate, a $500 billion project. And on Thursday, Trump appeared in a video address at Davos, touting that the U.S. will be “the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto.”
Meanwhile, there's a quieter trend playing out: The final week of January has historically been a positive period for stocks, and data suggests a handful of S&P 500 names could be primed for outsized gains.
January's Final Week Sparked By Optimism
Seasonality isn't always a reliable predictor in markets, but when patterns persist for nearly a century, they demand attention.
Data from Seasonax reveals that January has closed in positive territory 60% of the time over the past 97 years, with an average gain of 1.1%.
What's even more striking is that more than half of those gains have occurred in the final week of the month.
Since 1928, the S&P 500 has climbed 0.6% on average in the last week of January, closing higher 61% of the time.
5 Stocks With a History Of Late-January Gains
Historical patterns don't dictate the future, but they often coincide.
And according to two decades of market data, five S&P 500 stocks have consistently outperformed during the final stretch of January.
Stock | Avg. Return (Final Jan. Week) | Positive Closes (Last 20 Yrs) | Best Performance |
---|---|---|---|
Hologic Inc. HOLX | 4.08% (Jan. 23 – Feb. 2) | 14 out of 20 years | 36.58% in 2005 |
Amazon.com Inc. AMZN | 2.7% (Jan. 23 – Jan. 30) | 16 out of 20 years | 16.2% in 2009 |
NRG Energy Inc. NRG | 2.5% (Jan. 23 – Feb. 2) | 14 out of 20 years | 21.04% in 2016 |
Wells Fargo & Co. WFC | 1.9% (Jan. 23 – Jan. 31) | 13 out of 20 years | 21% in 2009 |
Becton, Dickinson & Co. BDX | 1.56% (Jan. 23 – Feb. 2) | 14 out of 20 years | 9.8% in 2005 |
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