Fidelity’s latest research findings come at a moment when oil trades near $100 a barrel, the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment gauge has fallen to a record low, and the S&P 500 has rallied sharply.
Before you move a single dollar based on a calendar page, you need to see what Fidelity’s numbers reveal about the strategy’s true cost.
Fidelity’s S&P 500 data show why staying invested beats sell-in-May strategy
The S&P 500 has averaged a gain of roughly 7% from November through April since 1945, compared with approximately 2% from May through October, according to Fidelity’s Viewpoints research.
That gap becomes more dramatic in recent decades, as the index has lost nearly 2% on average during the May-to-October window since 1990.
The index fell in 56% of those May-through-October stretches since 1990, meaning the seasonal pattern has delivered losses more often than gains over the past 36 years. For your retirement account, brokerage portfolio, or 401(k), that means selling every May would have put you on the losing side of the odds.
American Century’s data reveal cost of sell-in-May pattern
Eric Wenz, an associate client portfolio manager conducting an analysis for American Century Investments, traced the lifetime cost of the strategy using a $1,000 hypothetical investment. That $1,000 invested in the S&P 500 in 1976 would have grown to approximately $294,795 through the end of 2025 under a buy-and-hold approach.
The same $1,000 following the sell-in-May strategy would have reached just $46,351 over that identical period, a staggering $248,000 gap in lost growth. The market delivered positive returns during summer months in 38 of 50 calendar years from 1976 through 2025, Wenz found in the analysis.
CFRA’s Sam Stovall says investors should rotate sectors, not retreat from market
Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research and a certified financial planner, has studied the sell-in-May pattern for years. CFRA research cited by MoneyShow shows that since 1990, cyclical sectors such as consumer discretionary, industrials, materials, and technology have outperformed the broader market from November through April.
Stovall, who created the CFRA-Stovall Seasonal Rotation Index in 2018, advises investors to “rotate, don’t retreat,” CNBC reports, pointing to a seasonal sector strategy that, according to CFRA data shared by Fidelity, has beaten the S&P 500 about 72% of the time since 1990.
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Defensive sectors like consumer staples and health care have fared better during the May-through-October window, creating an opportunity for tactical portfolio adjustments, Fidelity noted. For your portfolio, that means the seasonal data points toward shifting sector exposure rather than pulling your money out and sitting in cash all summer.
Stovall has noted that consumer staples and health care stocks delivered an average annualized return of nearly 3% during the weaker seasonal stretch since 1990. That return still outpaced what an investor would have earned by parking the same amount of money in a standard money market fund over those months.
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Consumer sentiment hits record lows as Iran war clouds 2026 outlook
The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index had a final reading of 49.8 in April 2026, the lowest reading on record. Year-ahead inflation expectations surged to 4.7% from 3.8% in March, the largest one-month jump since April 2025, as energy costs spiked from the Middle East conflict.
“Consumer confidence edged up in April but was overall little changed, despite material concern about rising gasoline prices,” said Dana M. Peterson, chief economist for The Conference Board.
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index told a different story, edging up to 92.8 in April. Peterson said in a press release that the gain reflected “modest improvements in consumers’ perceptions of the labor market” that offset declining views of business conditions.
The split between those two surveys reflects a market where your job feels secure, but your grocery bill, gas tank, and electric bill keep climbing.
S&P 500 Q1 2026 earnings say fundamental backdrop remains strong
Of the 63% of S&P 500 companies reporting first-quarter results by May 1, 2026, a remarkable 84% posted earnings above analyst expectations, the highest rate since Q2 2021, FactSet reported.
Companies in aggregate beat consensus estimates by 20.7%, also the highest surprise margin since Q1 2021, with nine of 11 sectors seeing upward revisions, according to FactSet’s May 1 Earnings Insight.
Goldman Sachs Research projects the S&P 500 will reach 7,600 by year-end 2026, built on an estimated 12% earnings-per-share growth this year, Ben Snider, the firm’s chief U.S. equity strategist, wrote in the team’s outlook.
Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, noted that the S&P 500 gained 5.3% through April 2026, Benzinga reported. History shows that when the index gains more than 5% in the first four months, the remainder of the year has been higher in 23 of the past 25 years, with average gains of 8.8%.
Fidelity’s sell-in-May verdict and the tax trap most investors overlook
Selling also carries tax consequences that seasonal enthusiasts often ignore, as liquidating winning positions in a taxable account triggers capital gains taxes that erode returns, Hook Wealth Management has cautioned.
Fisher Investments noted that the May-through-October stretch has produced positive returns roughly 73% of the time since 1925, which means exiting during those months puts you against the odds.
Fidelity’s analysis suggests a more measured approach for tactical investors, trimming only positions you no longer want to hold for the long run while keeping your core strategy intact.
The difference between a disciplined tactical adjustment and a panicked seasonal exit can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a full investing career, the American Century data demonstrate.
Related: Fidelity spotlights options-based ETF for protection
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