There were more end of month shenanigans on display on the last trading day of October than you would find in a pub full of leprechauns on the day before Melbourne Cup. Its becoming the "thing", and I'm really losing faith in the validity of prices on the last day of the month.
Yesterday (Friday 29 Oct) saw a steady sale of the larger stocks, with the main indices finishing down 1.5% (approx) for no apparent reason. What's a little inflation to do with things? Everyone has known about rising prices, and the threat of rising interest rates, for a long time. So what if interest rates go from 0.25% to 0.5% or even 1%? There was absolutely no reason for yesterday's sell-off.
There is only one answer. It was the last day of the month and the bigger players needed to make their books "look pretty" for the monthly reports.
On the strength of that, I bought more IOZ at yesterday's close. The sell-off was too good to be true for a bloke with money burning a hole in his pocket. I just had to spend some, and IOZ was my poison. ANZ got a little bit of the closing match action, too.
Now, for November.
On the averages presented, November is always in the top 4 most volatile months. Last year the ASX 200 index moved an incredible 13.7% between low and high during November and, luckily for the longs, finished up just shy of 10%.
Although it is one of the most volatile months, over the long term, November tends to move very little, with the ASX 200 index finishing within 1% of where it opened.
Yes, I'm sticking with IOZ, a proxy for the ASX 200 index, for November. The economy is opening up, people will be travelling again, although not to Melbourne for the Cup, and all of the large companies will continue raking in the profits. The long term stats don't look good for the month, but I'm placing my money on this nag that will run a true 2 miles, and continue at a steady gallop while all the pretenders drop off one by one.
KH
The figures below are my own work, data extracted from NABTrade charts.