Unlucky 7

Finally, it's a year ending in 7. Where is she going with this one, you may be thinking? More attention is being devoted to this phenomenon recently—including in Barron's this past weekend and in The Leuthold Group’s famous "Green Book" for August —given that we are heading into the period in the year when weakness was often most pronounced in those years. Perhaps it's "mystical," as Barron’' opined; or perhaps it ties into the economic or even political cycles; but the pattern is there nonetheless. As you can see in the chart below, nearly every year ending in 7 since the dawn of the Dow Jones Industrial Average has experienced at least a 10% correction … except 1927—when it came close—and this year, so far.