Is this based on the Dow? Since there are days where the Dow is negative and other broader indexes are positive (possible outcome for today), how do we class such days?
Ah, and now here comes the one-post shill. Next we will hear where to subscribe. For all newbies: this information is academic at best and utterly useless at worst. Certainly not worth paying for. Bull markets have almost as many down days as up days. Bear markets have almost as many up days as down days. But in a bull market, the ATR of up days is higher. In other words, the average up day might be say perhaps 12 SP points on average, but the down days are only 8 points down. Hence the market moves up over time. Opposite for bear markets. Looking at this heat map will only delude someone into thinking they actually know what is going to happen next - a most dangerous state of mind for a trader.
Thanks for the map. It confirms some things we sort of suspected: the market tends to go up at the beginning of each month as new money from paychecks flows in, and in mid-April as people scramble to fund their previous year's IRA, and around Thanksgiving due to expectations for a good retail season. I'd like to see a map sorted by weeks-before-options-expiration, if you could.
This reminded me of something from Hulbert a couple days ago about a market timing system based on the beginnings/ends of months and holidays. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/update-on-highest-ranked-timing-system-2010-02-04