STREET DOGS

IF YOU are a trader you’ve probably come across some unusual trading strategies. Not all are as wacky as they might sound, and some are even supported by research. That includes:

Trading the weather. Do you get up every Monday and look at stock or currency forecasts for the week? Well, you might want to consider looking at the weather forecast instead. Trading according to the weather is based on the assumption that the financial markets perform better on sunny days than on cloudy or rainy days. Oddly enough, there is some evidence to support this. According to several studies, stock markets do indeed perform better on sunny days, although the reasons are purely psychological.

Trading the seasons. If you pull up a monthly chart and highlight the month of April, you will quickly see that it is historically a very good month. So are November, December, January and March. Several investment theories have emerged out of this finding, which is based on a 62-year study of the stock markets. One strategy called the six month switching strategy is to trade in the six months beginning November 1 before switching to safer investments in the remainder of the year.

Playing the exchanges. Do you monitor the junior exchanges? Well, you should, according to Wealth Daily, which in 2010 showed that you should buy companies that go from a junior exchange to a senior one because moving to the latter allows investors to drive up the company’s volume and value. According to the proponents of this strategy, you can make stupendous short-term gains by simply picking stocks that switch exchanges. A good example would be stocks that move from ALTX to the main board.