This chart shows that buying and holding stocks beats ‘sell in May and go away’ and other gimmicks

The "sell in May and go away" adage holds that investors should exit equities around May and return in the autumn, based on the historical tendency for stocks to underperform over the summer months. This year, followers of that approach have missed a stock rally, according to the source — a reminder that seasonal patterns are tendencies, not certainties, and can diverge sharply from the calendar.

For markets, the episode illustrates a broader point about timing strategies: they require two correct decisions — when to exit and when to re-enter — and a single mistimed call can outweigh the benefit of avoiding a downturn. By contrast, a buy-and-hold approach keeps an investor exposed to the market's long-term compounding, though it also means accepting periodic drawdowns along the way.

What to watch: whether the summer rally persists or fades, and how seasonal-flow narratives hold up against incoming earnings and economic data. Seasonal claims describe average historical behaviour, not a forecast, so they are best treated as context rather than a signal.