Is "Sell in May" really a good idea (in the case of Bitcoin)?

[d5000]

Often one reads the ancient trader myth "Sell in May and go away!" in a Bitcoin or crypto context. And there seems to be, at a first glance, some evidence that the "boreal" summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) has, on average, a lower ROI than the rest of the year. For example, according to this recent Coindesk article, June, July, August and September since 2010 have had below-average returns, and August and September even had a net price decline of -1% and -4.6%.

But let's look a bit closer what happened in each year:


Source: Newhedge

We can see the following:

- May is a quite average month, but quite positive. 8 times the month left positive returns (not counting the current May), and 5 times negative returns.
- June is also, surprisingly, more positive than negative. 7 times there were positive returns, and only 5 times the price fell.
- July, again, has 8 positive months and 5 negative. The interesting thing here is that it is a particularly low risk month: Only once, in 2011, there was a double-digit decline in price, and it was of only 12%.
- August finally follows the stereotype of the "boring" summer month. 10 times the returns were negative, and only 4 times positive. But: Only in 2011 there was really a crash with 30% loss, while in 2017 there was a 73% growth.
- September also looks often like a typical "Downtember".  Like in August we have 4 positive and 10 negative months. But there is some hopium even there: the negative months, with the exception of 2011 and 2014, weren't that bad.

So we could conclude from this picture that following this rule strictly would make us lose at least three net positive months. Perhaps we should change it to "Sell in July". And even in this case traders may risk to lose particularly good months like August 2013 or 2017.

On the other hand we can see that in years where the start of the year (January to March) was bullish, there was often a bearish period starting in April, May or June. Particularly the years 2021 and 2022 show this pattern. The "Don't sell in May" fraction of course can argue that both in 2021 (the China mining ban) and in 2022 (the Terra/Luna crash) there were external factors which had an influence on the bearish development.

So what do you think? Is "Sell in May" a good idea in 2024?

[adaseb]

That term generally applies to stocks and last time I checked it’s 50/50 whether it’s correct or not.

One thing that is true is that there is less growth because many people just go on vacation instead of trading. There is less liquidity and less movement and what happens is that stocks usually just trade sideways like bitcoin does in August like in your graph.

August was always a horrible month for crypto and bad for stocks. Barely anyone is trading because most of those professionals take that month to go on vacation.

[d5000]

One thing that is true is that there is less growth because many people just go on vacation instead of trading. There is less liquidity and less movement and what happens is that stocks usually just trade sideways like bitcoin does in August like in your graph.

Ah yes, the "vacation theory". I should have mentioned it explicitly in the OP.

But there's one thing I don't understand: If there are less traders, then the order books should be normally less thick. This should make it easier both for bears and bulls to try to break through resistances and supports to trigger liquidations, and actually rise volatility.

It's also not a good explanation for a negative tendency: "less traders" doesn't necessary mean "less bulls". I would even argue that professional traders mostly use strategies which don't depend that much on bearish or bullish movements. I've read also the explanation "traders take profits before they go to vacation", but this would mean normally that June/July should be relatively negative, and not August/September like Bitcoin price evoluton until now suggests.

For me it's interesting to analyze why just September is so negative for the Bitcoin price, because in September those going to vacations in the Northern Hemisphere are mostly back, if the "vacation theory" is the explanation for the "sideways August". This would mean they come back ... and sell? (The good ol' "Sell in May" myth says something different ).

[jcojci]

They should sell it at a high price and not depend on the month. We don't know whether the price will increase significantly in May or whether it will continue to experience correction. If the price can really increase in May, they can sell it. But if not, they should not sell it and keep holding it. We can't predict market conditions, so we must know market conditions before deciding to sell. These data may not always be true because market conditions are always changing.

[EarnOnVictor]

-snip-
So what do you think? Is "Sell in May" a good idea in 2024?

So many myths live in the world today and are still thriving, which includes so many assumptions in the financial market as well, just like this one. But in my almost 2 decades of experience, they are mere lies, they will never be true but were put together to become myths due to mere coincidence at times. However in reality, the market is dynamic, it will never do the same thing at a specific period unless there are coincidences where histories repeat themselves or the market just behaves almost similarly to what had happened before.

Come what may, every trader should leave at the moment and not in the past to avoid serious trading issues. What any trader/investor should trust only is their trading charts, this is the best way to guide us. I will always say that there is nothing that can be compared to the trading chart because no matter what happens in the market, the trading chart will pick it unless the person doesn't know how to use it well.

[mk4]

I dunno, when talking about bitcoin/crypto, there are simply too many factors to take into account(especially in the current economic/regulatory environment) to make a conclusion just based on traders/investors going on some summer break.

Personally, I wouldn't make any decent-sized market decisions based solely on monthly history price data. Cool data though, nonetheless.

[Ambatman]

One thing that is true is that there is less growth because many people just go on vacation instead of trading. There is less liquidity and less movement and what happens is that stocks usually just trade sideways like bitcoin does in August like in your graph.

Ah yes, the "vacation theory". I should have mentioned it explicitly in the OP.

But there's one thing I don't understand: If there are less traders, then the order books should be normally less thick. This should make it easier both for bears and bulls to try to break through resistances and supports to trigger liquidations, and actually rise volatility.

Volume is not the only thing that moves prices when volume is low or close to constant other factors starts gaining prominence like a lot not excluding  news,Market sentiment etc.
The market is already used to the September effect and many would want to close their position before September.

why just September is so negative for the Bitcoin price, because in September those going to vacations in the Northern Hemisphere are mostly back, if the "vacation theory" is the explanation for the "sideways August". This would mean they come back ... and sell?

Yeah which is similar to the "sell in May and go away" which sprangs through summer
But the vacation theory is not the only reason people believe Bitcoin fall during September like bad news are believed to be released during Septembers
Schools usually start during this periods and let's not forget the financial crisis occurred in September
Maybe this has played a role but still the September effect has been going on way before the 2000's.

Nice data, despite historically proven correct on an average shouldn't be a basis for taking decision
I believe they can help though.
Like I personally observed patterns like this in days with Bitcoin.
Monday positive, Tuesday -wednessday evening negative, Wednessday night -friday positive, Saturday -unstable, Sunday -negative till night, and Sunday night till Monday positive.
This is based on my region time could be different from other country.
 

[Kelward]

-snip-
So what do you think? Is "Sell in May" a good idea in 2024?

So many myths live in the world today and are still thriving, which includes so many assumptions in the financial market as well, just like this one. But in my almost 2 decades of experience, they are mere lies, they will never be true but were put together to become myths due to mere coincidence at times. However in reality, the market is dynamic, it will never do the same thing at a specific period unless there are coincidences where histories repeat themselves or the market just behaves almost similarly to what had happened before.

The crypto market is volatile, what is uptainable last year might not play out the same way in this year, example is ATH price that happened before the halving, it was a shift from the norm of previous halvings. I'd say that "sale in May" might not be a profitable decision because we're still in market dip after the halving, Bitcoin price has been hovering between $58k and $64k, and presently it's over $62, seeing that bull run has not really started in full force, I'll rather buy now than sale.

[Lucius]

There are various theories, but they are still only theories without any solid evidence that the summer in the northern hemisphere causes people to be less active in trading, or that maybe these same people when they return from their vacations/travels sell some of their cryptocurrencies because they spent too much money on their vacation. To some extent, this could explain why September is mostly red, although perhaps a global survey could provide some kind of meaningful answer.

Perhaps some of the patterns could be the result of the fact that people are mostly guided by the herd philosophy, which means that when some traders go in one direction, the majority follow them - which again could mean that some experienced traders know how to use it to make a profit.

[Plaguedeath]

A lot people really taking serious with anything they see on social medias, so I will not be surprised if this month Bitcoin price will decline especially during near end of the month. They believe Elon Musk's tweet make Bitcoin price rise, they believe when a business accept Bitcoin, the price will rise and any other silly thing. Right now Bitcoin price increased for 4%, this will be a good time for traders to sell their coins and bought on the beginning next month.

[d5000]

The market is already used to the September effect and many would want to close their position before September.

This is until now the explanation I would myself find the most convincing one, just for its "internal logic" - because afaik it's a pretty common phenomenon that traders always try to "anticipate" the market.

However, judging from the data in the graph above, I think the evidence for it is relatively thin. If this was a widespread phenomenon, then we should see two things:

1) a "deepening" of the September "crash"
2) an increasingly negative August price evolution, due to traders anticipating the "Downtember"

At least the first one is not occurring. It seems to me even that the September downtrend is less pronounced each year. It's possible however that this "phenomenon" is now so well known that it is exploited by other traders, the other way around (e.g. trying to liquidate shorts).

For factor 2 (August becoming worse) there could be some evidence, in the last two years there was a double-digit August decline. So I don't rule out there is really some "anticipation" effect here in place.

Schools usually start during this periods and let's not forget the financial crisis occurred in September
Maybe this has played a role but still the September effect has been going on way before the 2000's.

Ah, thank you, I didn't know that the September Effect was really a thing in the stock market. Interesting.

Monday positive, Tuesday -wednessday evening negative, Wednessday night -friday positive, Saturday -unstable, Sunday -negative till night, and Sunday night till Monday positive.

It's interesting, I have also made observation on that matter, but for me there seem to be two different patterns:
- first, the "Monday/Tuesday dip" pattern. It isn't as common in the last weeks but was very pronounced in early 2024 (just after the ETF approval, some blamed GBTC selling)
- second, the "Monday boom - Midweek dip" which is now more common in the last weeks, and is similar to what you observed.
In both cases, however, weekends were quite stable and uneventful. I remember that in the early days of Bitcoin weekends were often an excuse for larger dips ("weekend dip" was a term you could google in 2013 or so).

[pinggoki]

That term generally applies to stocks and last time I checked it’s 50/50 whether it’s correct or not.

So basically it's not a reliable thing for you to use as a tool to predict when you would be investing your money in bitcoin then. Now that I think about it, there's not a lot of significant happenings as of recently this month so maybe May does have it's years that it's good and then years that it's a meh. For me, I think that basing on the Coindesk provided graph, it's not a good idea to sell in May because the returns albeit at the level that's acceptable, it's not really that good for someone to do anyway.

[SamReomo]

So what do you think? Is "Sell in May" a good idea in 2024?

No, I think selling in May isn't a good idea in 2024, we are still in the early days of the bull run and who knows that happens in coming months. There's chance to see Bitcoin surging at new ATH levels in the coming months and the ones who sell now might end up missing some good returns that they might have when Bitcoin's price surges in the coming months.

I believe the ones who already accumulated Bitcoin should hold their coins for at least November 2024 but if the can then holding for 2025's November should be a good decision. If history repeats itself then we may have the highest intensity of Bitcoin in October-December. Most probably in October because if we check the History of last few years then we can see that October has given positive percentages as compare to other months.

[Hamza2424]

Ohh, wow anyway from the historical view, most analysts consider may a negative month for the financial markets, but why I'm unable to evaluate, In the crypto market May smees like a kind of confusing month, even though the month is not closed yet but it will be surely a positive one, already market crossing 63k, but taking exit makes no sense in may especially when there's recent halving and a good journey is expected, I did add some more coins in the bag.

Best to grab it if you consider it cheap, for now, according to the expectations, the current price is really worth buying a few days or a week back it was the best entry time who were still waiting but seems like if they didn't take any action until now they are going to miss the train, because in my view it was the dead end of correction.

[goaldigger]

I dunno, when talking about bitcoin/crypto, there are simply too many factors to take into account(especially in the current economic/regulatory environment) to make a conclusion just based on traders/investors going on some summer break.

Personally, I wouldn't make any decent-sized market decisions based solely on monthly history price data. Cool data though, nonetheless.

Price history can be a big help but still, its not ok to purely rely on this because there's still a factor to consider before you sell your holdings.
Either the market hits your target price or hit your cut loss level, that should be your basis of selling and also depend on your strategy. This data might be overwhelming but it can be good too if you know how to use it properly, but if you are just a beginner better to look at the price trend to help you decide on your next move.

[BITCOIN4X]

I'm not thinking about selling it anytime soon, especially in May. But that doesn't mean selling in May is bad for some short-term investors. I see May as a positive month for bitcoin rather than a negative one, so I'm not saying selling in May is bad (if one wants to do so). There are still many opportunities to buy in the following month, especially below the selling price in May, but investment decisions and plans should not change just because of another user's point of view even though they can see the price history in the table above.

There is fear and there is also greed, they must really be able to maintain their long-term investment plans well. Personally, I tend to hold on and hold longer for this year until the middle of next year, meaning I don't want to sell.

[Yamifoud]

I can't say it is a good idea but optional IMO, it depends on the situation and needs. The situation keeps on changing and we can't say what happened in the past years will be the same as this year. So, we still need to keep updated and make some plans because why not sell our Bitcoin if there is an opportunity?
But in my mind, I keep holding on until early in the 4th quarter because it is noticed that its price rises when BER season comes.
However, I also think about the new ATH which I think this idea (Sell in May) is not good, not even this year until it reaches.

[OgNasty]

When it comes to Bitcoin, I would focus more on the four year cycle. It’s backed by mathematics and has a proven track record. This year in particular with the halving, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to be selling right now. You’ll regret it in a year. Stocks are more prone to an annual cycle of movements due to being more effected by the flow of money to the average person.

[philipma1957]

When it comes to Bitcoin, I would focus more on the four year cycle. It’s backed by mathematics and has a proven track record. This year in particular with the halving, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to be selling right now. You’ll regret it in a year. Stocks are more prone to an annual cycle of movements due to being more effected by the flow of money to the average person.

og the op made thread yesterday and today we are whaling.

hodl hodl hodl.

[el kaka22]

Lol, nobody lives in the southern hemisphere!! I do agree that May will be a good month, I have long said that all these falls could be recovered this month, while it doesn't look like that right now, it just takes a few days in a row ending in green and we can be over 70k again.

I mean going up 10% is not a huge deal in the crypto world, we could have that, also it means that we could have 10% days in a row, two of them and suddenly you are at over 70k once again. This is going to be quite important, we need to realize that it is not going to end up all that easy. This should be an important deal, we can't really make it work any other way, it will take some time but it will be important for everyone in the end.