June is Typically not a Strong Month for the S&P 500... Can 2025 Buck the Trend?
After two years of 20%+ gains, a mere .5% gain through the end of May of 2025 certainly seems lackluster. However, the point to point returns don’t tell the full story, as many of us will take what we can get after April’s exhale… the mere fact that major markets are in the black for the year is quite a feat. Despite this rally back up into positive territory, it should come as no surprise that SPX is lagging an “average” year by all forms of the word. The simple chart below details this via the value of a hypothetical $100 portfolio for 2025 (blue) against a sample portfolio which follows the average return for each month dating back to 1987. While plenty can still change over the course of the back half of the year, it goes without saying that markets have plenty of work left to do to fall back in line with our historical expectations.
While pure historical averages alone certainly don’t tell the full story, they can provide some direction as you enter mid-year conversations with clients. With that said, the table below breaks down SPX performance by month dating back to 1987. As you would expect, most months are positive, seeing eight of the 12 calendar months earn positive average returns. Unfortunately, June isn’t one of them, falling by a mere three basis points under “normal” circumstances. It also earns the narrowest spread between the min (-8.60%) & max (+6.89%) return of any calendar month… not inherently a good or bad thing by itself. Perhaps the feather in the cap of June is the fact that despite its negative average returns, it has landed in the green roughly 58% of the time (still the 8th best monthly hit rate.)
2025 has been anything put “normal.” Remember to take these averages with a grain of salt. There are plenty of points throughout history when historically “strong” months have been anything but. The same can be said those points that have been relative underperformers. Regardless, use the averages above to recalibrate your compass over the next month as we rocket into the close of Q2 2025.
