Get Bespoke’s 2017 Outlook Report with a 30-day free trial to Bespoke’s premium research!  Click here to learn more.

The spread between the S&P 500’s intraday high and its intraday low today was just 0.26%.  That ranks in the top 25 for most boring days over the last 30+ years (our intraday data goes back to 1984).  It’s not surprising given the holidays.  Markets nearly always die down at this time of year.  You may remember the chart below if you’ve been reading Bespoke throughout the year — we’ve posted it a few times already.  It shows the S&P 500’s average absolute percentage change for each trading day of the year going back to 1928.  As you can see, daily volatility runs between +/-0.60% and +0.80% over the first two and a half quarters of the year before picking up significantly from late September through early November.  Then we see the daily action fall off a cliff from mid-November through the end of the year, which is where we currently sit.

In working on our 2017 annual outlook report, we decided to take a quick look at how the S&P 500 has historically performed in years ending in “7” going back to 1928 when the index was formed.  Unfortunately for market bulls, this is an instance where 7 is not a very lucky number.  As shown below, the S&P has historically averaged a slight decline of 0.97% in years ending in 7, with gains occurring only half of the time.  Years ending in “0” and “1” have also seen the S&P average a decline, and in these years the index has posted gains less than half the time.

So what has been the best year to be invested?  Years ending in a “5” have averaged a mammoth gain of 22.42%, and the index has been up 88.9% of the time in these years (8 out of 9).  Unfortunately we have to wait until 2025 to get the next one!

Want to see Bespoke’s 2017 annual outlook report?  Click here to gain access with a 30-day free Bespoke research trial.

Get Bespoke’s 2017 Outlook Report with a 30-day free trial to Bespoke’s premium research!  Click here to learn more.

While December is typically a strong month for equities, most of the month’s gains have historically come prior to Christmas, while the last week of the year tends to be trendless with a slight positive bias.  With just seven trading days left in the year, we wanted to highlight which stocks in the S&P 500 have historically seen the best and worst returns from the close on 12/21 through the end of December over the last ten years.  The first table below lists the 14 stocks in the index that have seen a median gain of 2% or more during this period, and for each stock, we include the year where it saw its best and worst gains.

Topping the list of winning stocks to close out the year, shares of Viacom (VIAB) have seen a median gain of 2.89% with positive returns 60% of the time.  The stock had its best end-of-year gain in 2008 when it rallied 5.4% and its worst in 2009 when it fell 1.59%.  The most notable name on the list of winners, however, is Apple (AAPL).  Over the last ten years, the stock has seen a median gain of 2.15% with positive returns 60% of the time.  AAPL’s best end to a year was in 2009 (6.31%) while its worst was 2008 (-5.17%).  In terms of sector representation, both the Consumer Discretionary and Materials sectors account for four of the fourteen stocks listed.

On the downside, fourteen stocks in the S&P 500 have seen a median decline of 1% or more to end the year.  Surprisingly, Netflix (NFLX) tops the list of losers with a median decline of 1.96% and positive returns just 40% of the time.  The next worst performer has been Akamai (AKAM), which has seen a median decline of 1.49% with positive returns just twice.  Along with Altria (MO) and eBay (EBAY), AKAM is the least consistent to the upside of the stocks listed.

Each month, Bespoke runs a survey of 1,500 US consumers balanced to census.  In the survey, we cover everything you can think of regarding the economy, personal finances, and consumer spending habits.  We’ve now been running the monthly survey for more than two years, so we have historical trend data that is extremely valuable, and it only gets more valuable as time passes.  All of this data gets packaged into our monthly Bespoke Consumer Pulse Report, which is included as part of our Pulse subscription package that is available for either $39/month or $365/year.  We highly recommend trying out the service, as it includes access to model portfolios and additional consumer reports as well.  If you’re not yet a Pulse member, click here to start a 30-day free trial now!

Yesterday we highlighted our Pulse survey data on social media account trends, and today we’re taking a look at account trends for streaming media services.  Each month in our survey, we ask participants if they have an account with any of the streaming media platforms shown in the chart below.  Netflix (NFLX) is to streaming as Facebook (FB) is to social as Amazon.com (AMZN) is to e-commerce.  More than 50% of survey participants have a Netflix account, which is a massive number.  Back in late 2014 this reading was less than 40%, so Netflix continues to trend higher but hasn’t yet hit critical mass in our opinion.  Looking at the remaining services, we’ve seen Amazon Prime, Hulu and Spotify all trend higher as well over the past two years, while Pandora (P) is essentially flat.  The percentage of consumers that didn’t have an account with any of the services in the chart has dipped from the mid-40s to 30.2% as of November.

If you’re not yet a Pulse member and would like to track our streaming media data going forward, click here to start a 30-day free trial now!