Author Topic: is there a better day of the week to invest?  (Read 5068 times)

strider3700

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is there a better day of the week to invest?
« on: March 08, 2013, 12:12:23 AM »
I transfer money and invest it weekly.  Friday mornings roughly 10 am PST to be exact because that's when I settle down with coffee #2 of the day.    I was just wondering has anyone ever done an analysis of the markets and determined that things tend to be lower on certain days of the week or times? Or is it effectively purely random and timing my investing to my coffee break is as good as anything?   




marty998

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2013, 12:26:41 AM »
My uninformed opinion would be that Friday is a good day to buy. Many traders exit positions so as not to hold over the weekend.

Leveraged traders also would not pay interest for 2 days on open positions. The selling pressure could mean that Fridays are on average down days.

So yeah Friday afternoon (maybe not morning) is probably as good a time as any.

arebelspy

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2013, 07:20:52 AM »
To address marty's idea: couldn't as many of those traders be buying to cover shorts?

To address the OP: If someone did do a study like that (which they very may well have, I actually seem to recall something... but you can google as well as I), don't you think people would adjust based on that knowledge, and the advantage gained would quickly disappear?

In other words, do you think that inefficiency, if it ever existed, still exists and you will be able to take advantage of it?  Especially enough that it's profitable to bother?

P.S. I heard Buffet refuses to buy companies except on Wednesdays, because he can get them cheaper then.
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JamesL

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2013, 06:34:53 PM »
I'd say Wednesday or Thursday. Only because people get paid on Friday (right?), so most people are putting in their orders on Friday, which can go in within 0-3 business days depending what it is (ETF,Mutual Fund, etc).  That's my guess, seeing as that's exactly what I do (put in my order to buy on Friday lol). If I was patient enough to wait a few days I might.. but.. I don't really try to beat the market lol.

sol

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2013, 09:02:22 PM »
This is a well studied phenomenon in the investing world.  There is no right answer.

BYUvol

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2013, 10:15:11 AM »
"October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February."

-Mark Twain

Daley

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2013, 02:51:00 PM »
This is purely anecdotal, but I've seen mention to Fridays for purchasing (or avoiding) here in this thread, which reminded me of a phenomena with a company I used to work for about a decade ago. Every payday, their stock would spike in value, and bottom out about a week after (20-25% price difference throughout the cycle). I would imagine that similar trends could be applied to any corporation with stock options, though the variance between payday and not probably isn't as pronounced with most of these outfits as with a company who rarely traded above $3 a share. I don't really play the market myself, so it's not something I've dug through to see if others mimic that trend, though I've heard mention by others that they noticed a similar trend with Apple stock on occasion... it might be worth looking for if you're interested in a specific company to invest.

SamV

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2013, 03:14:05 PM »
OP, you said you invest every Friday, but you didn't tell us what you invest in? Individual stocks, ETF, mutual funds, or something else?

Without knowing that here is my answer, well, actually five - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It doesn't really matter in the long run which day you buy, if you keep buying the same thing every Friday.

strider3700

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2013, 12:10:52 AM »
Index ETF's  covering canada, US and international markets.   

 The only reason I got to thinking about this was  while making breakfast the radio always has a 2 minute blurb about the markets and near the end of the month they always seem to mention it's down a bit because of profit taking at the end of the month/quarter.   It got me to wondering about people getting out of the market so they're not worried about the weekend like was pointed out   and even more specific a few years back it seemed like in the mornings everything dropped and then their was a rally in the last hour of the day so things closed flat or up a tiny bit.  Lots of paranoid people on a different board discussing it as a conspiracy.

Either way I'm happy doing my purchases while having coffee.   I'd prefer if it was 100% automated but I haven't found a way to set my desired allocation and have it sorted out correctly and do the purchases as best it can.

Richard3

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Re: is there a better day of the week to invest?
« Reply #9 on: March 22, 2013, 03:59:52 PM »
Listening to analysis of why the sharemarket was up or down yesterday makes about as much sense and listening to me explain why I flipped seven heads out of ten this morning (what? I like to flip a coin while I brush my teeth).

In the short term, stock prices (barring major outside events) are essentially a random walk. I'm not saying it is 50.50 up or down, there are momentum effects, but the market was no more down at the end of the month due to profit taking than I flipped seven heads because I had a fried egg sandwich (which was excellent by the way - always use butter to fry your eggs).

 

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