xjo survival guide to 2012 wednesday, page-97

Hi El Capo,

Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry I missed your earlier post.

Looks like in bear years the performance is a coin toss, i.e., random.

With 17 years in your sample - its still a bit small to be certain. Were bear years the only years which followed a first day up? I think that's highly doubtful.

It might have been more convincing if you'd looked at the results for each year and all years (not just bear years). Were, for example, the up years - big up years and the down years - small down years. Or, were the up years small up years and the down years - large down years. Or was the distribution random.

You'll notice that Frank Hogelucht used the Russell 2000 and the Amex Composite for his data, not the SP500 or the Dow 30. And he looked at all years. You, apparently have looked at bear years.

As he states - he's thinking outside the box - not using the usual measures.

His conclusions are sound based on the data he presents. Again - the sample sizes are small. So they have to be suspect on that basis.

I think the jury is out.

Redbacka