I’ve just been looking into this “Sell in May” strategy, and I realized there are quite a few interesting things about it that not everyone knows.

You may have heard of this strategy—it suggests that investors sell stocks at the beginning of May to avoid the summer season, then buy back in November. This rule dates back to 17th-century England, when aristocrats and bankers often left busy London to spend the summer in the countryside, returning only after the famous horse-racing event in September.

By the 20th century, “Sell in May” gradually became a theory that many people trusted. Statistics from Forbes show that from 1950 to 2013, the Dow Jones index rose by only 0.3% from May to October, but increased by 7.5% from November to April. It sounds reasonable, but Barron’s points out that over the past 30 years, the additional profit for investors using this strategy was only about 0.7% per year—before even factoring in taxes and transaction costs.

But what I want to say is: don’t just apply “Sell in May” to crypto mechanically. Based on market price data over the past 13 years (excluding 2024), there have been 7 bullish months in May and 6 bearish months—meaning roughly 54% of May months were up and 46% were down. This suggests that the “Sell in May” strategy is unlikely to work effectively for crypto.

The lesson here is: each market has its own characteristics. Basic knowledge may be shared, but the way you apply it has to be flexible. You can’t take theory from the stock market or Forex and just transplant it into crypto. If you’re trading on exchanges like Gate, make sure to research the specific rules of the crypto market instead of simply believing old strategies from other markets.