I think you may be right there Danube. I have jabbered on about...

I think you may be right there Danube. I have jabbered on about a 6-month cycle there in the past, but it just never occurred to me, that it is the dividend difference.
Looking back thru to 2002, the discounts for the SPI always occur at the same times throughout the year, and only really got out of whack in 08-09 when the wiffy stuff hit the fan.

Maybe there is still a bias towards a strong market during dividend paying periods? I suppose a more direct way to measure that would be to use a yearly seasonal pattern based on price alone.