Poor January Results Need Not Set Course for Year, Experts Say ; Analysts Give Little Weight to Street Lore

Summary

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NEW YORK - An old Wall Street adage holds that January's trading dictates the market's direction for the rest of the year, but most professional investors think there's still hope for 2005 even after the lackluster performance of the past month.

The indicator known as the January Barometer has predicted the market's performance with a startling 91 percent accuracy, but it's not infallible. Since 1950, January has ended with a loss 20 times; in 12 of those cases, the year closed lower, but the rest of the time returns were flat to higher. What does that prove? Some say absolutely nothing.

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Extract

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Poor January Results Need Not Set Course for Year, Experts Say ; Analysts Give Little Weight to Street Lore

"Statistical correlations by themselves are meaningless. Too much can happen in a year for the movement of stocks in January to hav...

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