No, you should not “sell in May and go away”

“Sell in May (and buy back in November) has ‘worked’, but the hit rate is often poor: The return for most risk assets between May and October has been lower than the rest of the year (UST returns show the reverse). But for many markets, the hit rate of ‘Sell in May’ is barely better than a coin-toss, and the strategy hasn’t worked for MSCI ACWI in seven of the last ten years.”

Morgan Stanley’s Cross-Asset Dispatches research note looked at the age-old “sell in May and go away” strategy last week, and found that while this advice does make sense for some investors, history suggests that that buying volatility over the summer is more attractive than de-risking...