Investing based on historical monthly performance or seasonality trends is a risky approach when it comes to Fidelity's Selects, since the economic, financial, monetary, and industry specific conditions are never the same from one year to the next.
Where the month of April is concerned, however, looking back over the past 7 years (1992-1998), for those funds that existed during that entire time, the 10 strongest Selects have been:
Retailing
Brokerage
Electronics
Industrial Materials
Software
Technology
Chemicals
Food & Agriculture
Developing Communications
Paper & Forest
The 10 weakest funds in April (worst performer listed first) have been:
Gold
Medical Delivery
Computers
Leisure
Insurance
Consumer Industries
Home Finance
Environmental
Air Transportation
Utility Growth
As you can see, there are financial and technology funds in both groups, so no definite judgement about the probability of funds in either are doing well or poorly can really be made.
For these 7 years, the S & P 500 has returned an average of 2.0% in April, the average Select has returned 1.7%, while 15 of the 34 funds in this group have produced an average return for April better than that of the S & P 500.
My advice ... watch the market, and the charts of the funds, make your investment decisions according to current conditions, not past performance that occurred under vastly different circumstances.
Have a good weekend.
Bernie Kaplan |
