By Rick Glaze

Recent volatility in the markets has brought anxiety for investors in recent weeks. Saber rattling by Iran has resulted in choppy oil prices. In addition, the Federal Reserve’s steadily raising interest rates has led to alternating fears of economic slowdown and inflationary growth. As I’ve written before, you cannot have both a slowdown and hypergrowth at the same time - yet the fears remain and have led to some panicky reactions in the markets.

But remember: Volatility is not caused by events, it is caused by people. People buy and sell, and their thoughts and emotions are often responsible for their actions.

Last week I quoted the old Wall Street cliché, “Sell in May and go away.” The saying implies that the summer can often be dreary for investors. With that in mind, I delved into my computer storage and found a trove of data on monthly stock market performance. It revealed some interesting insights.

A look at a full decade - the 1990s - showed that the month of June was down five out of 10 years, July was down four of 10 and October, the infamously feared month, was down four out of 10 years. Slicing and dicing the data revealed that the years the numbers were down, the month of June averaged a negative 2.18 percent. July and September were down 1.70 and 1.79 percent, respectively. Spot-checking the 10-year numbers, a few years had four or five months in a row of positive returns, but many years had no more than two or three positive months in a row.

Even though the decade overall was quite positive for stocks, there was an ebb and flow that is natural in these highly liquid markets.

Rick Glaze is president of Glaze Capital Management Inc. of Los Altos and a registered representative offering securities through First Allied Securities Inc. Contact him at Rick@Glazecapital.com.