First and Last Day of Month Returns

After five straight months of negative returns and its longest monthly losing streak since 1990, the S&P 500 is poised to finish the month of April in positive territory. But how does the market typically perform on the last day of the month?

In the table below, we calculated the average performance of the S&P 500 on the first and last trading day of each month since 1980. The average return on the last day of April is 0.15%, which is above the overall average of 0.10% for the last day of all months.

As we head into May, the S&P 500 has averaged a return of 0.20% on the first trading day of May, which is slightly below the overall average for first of month returns.