SPY in November: 21 of 27 years ahead of holding, and all its losses in the other 6

One month, entered and exited at the open

November has a long reputation as one of the stronger months for US stocks. This page tests one fixed version of that claim on the SPY ETF and keeps every year it can measure.

The exit is December's opening price, not November's last close, so each trade includes the overnight move into December. The number of sessions in the window changes with the calendar: Thanksgiving and the weekday November starts on move it. In this sample the windows come in 3 different lengths, and the evaluator compares each trade with an ordinary SPY hold of exactly its own length.

This is a calendar-month test. It is not the 15-session window that starts on October 31, and it is not the six-month November-to-April strategy often called the Halloween effect.

Remove the best year and the lead is still there

A small calendar average can rest on one extraordinary year. November's does not. Its best year, 2020, beat holding by +9.97 pp; without it the average falls from +1.73 pp to +1.41 pp, smaller and still clearly positive.

It also shows up in most years: 21 of 27 beat holding, and 20 of the 24 overlapping four-year windows averaged above zero. Split down the middle, the first 13 years (1999–2011) averaged +0.69 pp and the last 14 (2012–2025) +2.69 pp: the later period was stronger, not weaker. The most recent November, 2025, trailed holding by 1.70 percentage points.

The same rule on QQQ and IWM passes the same checks, one of them narrowly. See the three ETFs side by side, on the same years, below.

Most of November's return was more than drift

SPY rose in 23 of 27 Novembers, a 85.2% hit rate. That counts how often the month made money; it does not say whether November did better than any other stretch of the same length.

For that, each trade is set against the average ordinary SPY hold of the same number of sessions, measured over the price history before the research cutoff. Because window lengths differ, so do these benchmarks: from +0.701% for the shortest windows to +0.774% for the longest. Their average is +0.75%; November's average trade was +2.48%.

The comparison makes the claim narrower. In two years, 2015 and 2021, November made money and still fell short of an ordinary hold. A rising month is not, by itself, a calendar advantage.

Fewer losing Novembers, but larger ones

Here is what the checks above leave untouched. Only four of 27 November trades lost money, but those losses were bigger than the typical gain: they averaged −5.07%, against +3.79% for the 23 winners. The losing years were 2000, 2007, 2008 and 2025. The worst, 2008, lost −9.58% and trailed holding by 10.28 percentage points.

Payoff = mean positive ÷ absolute mean negative. Sum ratio = sum of positives ÷ absolute sum of negatives; for gross returns that is a profit factor only under an equal starting amount in every trade, not a cash account. For excess it is a descriptive ratio against an average benchmark, not the result of a hedged trade.

A high hit rate with a payoff below one is a common shape: most outcomes are modest gains and a few are large losses. It is why the 85.2% hit rate overstates how comfortable the rule was to hold. Removing a bad year from the record is not a way to avoid one, and 27 observations are too few to set a position size from.

21 Novembers above holding, 6 below

November fell short of its benchmark in 2000, 2007, 2008, 2015, 2021 and 2025. The best year, 2020, returned +10.71%, +9.97 pp above holding. The latest, 2025, lost 1.00% and trailed holding by 1.70 pp.

The typical November looks like the average one

The median November beat holding by +1.83 pp, close to the mean of +1.73 pp. A mean far above the median would say a few big years carry the result; here the middle of the distribution and its average tell a similar story. The large losses pull the mean slightly below the median.

Neither figure is a forecast of a normal November, and neither measures what happened inside a month before it ended.

The same month on QQQ and IWM

SPY's history here starts in 1999; IWM's starts in 2000. To compare like with like, this table uses only the 26 years all three share, 2000–2025, and each ETF keeps its own matched benchmark. That changes the observation years, not how any benchmark is computed.

All three clear the same checks on their full histories: positive after removing their best year, and beating holding in most years. IWM had the largest average excess, +2.50 pp. QQQ is the one close to the line: it beat holding in 16 of the 26 shared years, and in 17 of 27 on its own history, and its worst November, 2000, trailed holding by 21.21 percentage points.

Three ETFs with overlapping holdings are not three independent confirmations. They share market exposure, and picking the best-looking one from this table would be one more choice made with hindsight.

After the research cutoff, and what comes next

The history above stops at 31 December 2025. Trades completed since then are kept apart from it and listed here as they close, with the rule's next dates. They are not a forecast made in advance: the cutoff marks where the research data ends, not a date when this rule was chosen and recorded.

Every November, open to inspection

All 27 trades, including the six that trailed holding. The holding column changes with the window's length.

What this result cannot tell you

Twenty-seven annual trades is a short record. The excess is measured against an average of historical holds, so it is not a risk-adjusted return and not the result of a hedged position. No significance test or multiple-testing adjustment is supplied with this evidence, and November was not chosen at random: it is one of the most discussed months, which is why it is tested here.

All figures are gross, before trading costs and taxes. With one round trip a year, costs matter less here than for a monthly rule, but they are not zero, and a fair comparison with holding would charge both sides.

Path risk is not measured. These are open-to-open returns over roughly a month. The evidence does not show how far a November fell before it ended; a trade that finished at −9.58% may have been lower along the way, and a winning one may have been underwater. The result is for the SPY ETF; it does not describe futures, leveraged funds or options.

The cause is not identified. Calendar studies describe when returns happened, not why.