I almost was one of the people that put money back in the market at the end of the year. It's a new year, Obama is coming in, things will improve, I figured. But I held back. I don't like to make market decisions based solely on gut. And even then, my gut is of two minds and one of them says this recession is going to be the worst of my lifetime.

Some stats do point to an up year this year. We've been hearing a lot this week how the market goes up a lot after a fall. My friends at the always smart Stock Traders' Almanac use a measure of the first five trading days of the year. It was on this measure that I -- thankfully -- pulled back last January. If the first five days are up, the year will be generally be up, they've found. Sy Hirsch invented this measure as an improvement on his other early indicator, which says however January goes, so goes the market for the year.

For the last 36 times that the market has been up for those first five trading days in January, the market has been up for the whole year, they say. And they judge the indicator to have a 86% accuracy ratio. This year it's a little confusing: the Dow was down a little, the S&P was up a little (both under 1%) and the Nasdaq was up 2.5%. By that measure the rally that started in December will continue.

Continue reading What are the signals for the market in 2009?

What are the signals for the market in 2009? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.