A famous Wall Street adage suggesting that the stock market tends to weaken during the 10-day period from Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) to Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Explore this intriguing seasonal pattern observed since 1987.
2026년 9월 11일 금요일
Jewish New Year. Traditionally considered a sell signal for markets
2026년 9월 21일 월요일
Day of Atonement. Traditionally considered a buy signal for markets
Period: A 10-day holiday period. Historically, markets have tended to show weakness during this time.
Jewish Holiday Calendar
Legend
3-step investment framework
Sell holdings before the start of the New Year (Rosh Hashanah)
Observe market trends and wait during the holiday period
Buy back stocks after the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) ends
The Rosh Hashanah effect is a seasonal pattern observed on Wall Street since 1987, in which the stock market tends to weaken during the major Jewish holiday period.
The pattern of declining stock returns during the holiday period was first systematically recorded.
Research on this phenomenon was published in several finance journals.
An interesting market anomaly still observed every year.
We analyze holiday-period performance of major ETFs (SPY, QQQ, DIA) and compare historical patterns with current trends.
The 10-day period from the first day of Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur
Track daily and cumulative returns during the holiday period
Statistical significance over the past 30 years of data
The Rosh Hashanah effect is a seasonal story holding that stocks tend to be weak during the roughly ten days from Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On Wall Street it is captured in the saying sell on Rosh Hashanah, buy on Yom Kippur. The usual explanation is that this is the most solemn period in the Jewish calendar, so participation thins out and some traders reduce risk. This page computes the actual return over that window for each year from market data.
The saying only became widely quoted from the late 1980s, so the record runs to a few dozen episodes at most. Stocks actually rose in a good number of those years, so even when the average comes out slightly negative it is hard to call this a rule that repeats. Both holidays follow the Hebrew calendar, so the Gregorian dates shift each year, moving between late September and early October. That stretch is already a seasonally volatile part of the year, which makes the holiday effect difficult to separate from ordinary seasonality.
Calendar-based market patterns are often found by searching historical data after the fact, and they frequently disappear once the sample is changed or extended. Once a pattern becomes well known, traders positioning for it tend to arrive early and dilute the effect itself. A return difference measured over about ten days can also be wiped out entirely by transaction costs and taxes. Treat it as an interesting way into the topic of market seasonality rather than as a trading rule.