Hot Stocks for January 31, 2022 - AG, GOLD, DAL, SYF Seasonality

UPDATE: the actual performance of this trading basket, on a capital-balanced basis, was +0.84% ROC for the day.

For the Last Trading Day of January, there are many hot stocks projected to move significantly. The StockOdds Seasonality Dashboard provides quick insights for stocks, ETFs, or other securities likely to move in a given seasonality period such as monthly, first or last trading day, mid-month or 3rd Friday (option expiration) performance. In this case, we’ll take a look at a few symbols that typically have either bullish or bearish performance on the last trading day of January.

Seasonality for The Last Trading Day of January 2022

Using the Free Seasonality Almanac, we can generate seasonality-related ideas for stocks to trade. In this case, we’ll take a look at the Last Trading Day of January, which is January 31 and falls on a Monday. On the first page of the dashboard, we can pick the top stocks to go long and the top stocks to short by taking into account both the Average % Change and Odds data. In this case, we’ll look at First Majestic Silver Corp, Barrick Gold Corp, Delta Air Lines, Inc, and Synchrony Financial.

There are many other historically high-performing stocks, such as NVAX, GME, AMC and KOSS with average single-day performance of over 6%. However, this performance may be largely affected by meme-related action in 2021 and is partly seen by looking at the Odds which remain closer to 50. This is also related to short-candidate stocks such as ACB and  SRNE, which may have also been affected by short-interest memes and other trading action.

For the last trading day of January, historically, AG has 87.5 Odds of going up on average 3.25%, and GOLD has 100 Odds (which means it has moved higher on this same day 8 out of 8 years on this day) with average moves of 1.61%. On the bearish side, historically, DAL has 62.5 Odds of going down on average by -1.53%, and SYF has 71.4 Odds of going down on average by -1.40%.

These numbers are drawn from the previous 8 years for AG, GOLD, DAL, and previous 7 years for SYF. This can be found by hovering your mouse over the expected performance (green and  red) bars, as seen below, and looking at the number of Events.

Traders can use this information for context as to the seasonality of DAL and SYF which may qualify as shorts or AG and GOLD which may be suitable longs. Traders may want to look at additional Signals for each stock individually before entering a trade to “line up the ducks” with complimentary Odds and average performance for the same day, or even for longer and overlapping periods, based on MFI, Bollinger Bands, Momentum and others.

Additional Signals can be found through the Dashboards Reports or through the WebScreener. As we near the end of the month, traders typically look at RSI and %BB values for confirming Odds and average performance.

Before taking these statistics for granted, it is important to look for factors which may have contributed to past performance. For these symbols, the latest quarterly earnings are typically released sometime in January or February (more details below). When it comes to earnings, there can be cases of “Buying the hype, selling the news,” which also contribute to their Odds and average performance on the last trading day of January.

AG Seasonality for January, 2022

Navigating to the second page of the Seasonality Almanac, we can take a closer look at First Majestic Silver Corp's performance for the entire month of January, alongside SPY for context. 

Taking a look at the bottom, we can see the historical performance of SPY is very slightly negative on the last trading day of January, compared to AG, which outperforms the index. Also looking in the right-hand section, we can see the top 8 bullish seasonality signals for AG. 

The average monthly performance of AG has averaged +5.5%, with a mix of positive performance from most seasonality windows, and negative performance for the first Friday of the month. This gives indication that AG’s trading action tends to be choppy in between the tracked seasonality windows during January. This, along with looking at how AG is currently performing this January, can help frame intraday or swing trades for AG for the month.

AG is expected to release its latest quarterly earnings report on February 17, 2022.

GOLD Seasonality for January, 2022

Navigating to the second page of the Seasonality Almanac, we can take a closer look at  Barrick Gold Corp’s performance for the entire month of January, alongside SPY for context.

Taking a look at the bottom chart, we can see the historical performance of GOLD outperforms the SPY in many seasonality windows. Also looking in the rightmost section, we can see the top 8 bullish seasonality signals for GOLD.

The monthly performance of Barrick Gold Corp in January has averaged +7.2%, and we can see many seasonality windows contribute to this performance. However, this indicates there can typically be choppy, or even negative performance outside these periods. This can all help frame intraday or swing trades for GOLD for the month of January, with positive performance expected throughout the month.

GOLD is expected to release its latest quarterly earnings report on February 16, 2022.

DAL Seasonality for January, 2022

Navigating to the second page of the Seasonality Almanac, we can take a closer look at Delta  Air Lines, Inc’s performance for the entire month of January, alongside SPY for context.

Taking a look at the seasonality timeline at the bottom, we can see DAL historically underperforms the index during most seasonality windows, and especially the last 5 days of the month. Judging by the fairly flat monthly performance of -0.20%, this means it is up earlier and outside of the event windows, then historically declines in the last 1-5 trading days. This gives indication of somewhat choppy action for the month, other than the last few trading days of January. This can help frame intraday or swing trades for DAL for other days in the month.

Looking in the right-hand section, we can see the top 8 seasonality signals for DAL, from bullish to bearish. Since DAL is a potential short for January, we can refer to these signals to see the least bearish times to trade DAL stock.

DAL’s quarterly earnings report was released on January 13, 2022.

SYF Seasonality for January, 2022

Navigating to the second page of the Seasonality Almanac, we can take a closer look at  Synchrony Financial’s performance for the entire month of January, alongside SPY for context.

Taking a look at the bottom timeline, we can see SYF historically underperforms the SPY in the last 1, 3 and 5 trading days of January, while outperforming on the 3rd Friday (options expiration). Also looking in the right-hand section, we can see the top 8 seasonality signals for SYF, from bullish to bearish. Since SYF is a potential short for the Last Trading Day of January, we can refer to this section to see seasonality windows that indicate more bullish performance.

Though the monthly performance of Synchrony Financial in January has averaged +1.96%, we can see the last 5 trading days has -1.9% expectation, which indicates SYF typically outperforms during the beginning and middle of January, until the end where it can mean-revert back to average performance. This can help frame intraday or swing trades for SYF for the month of January.

SYF is expected to release its latest quarterly earnings report on January 28, 2022. This is likely to affect action on January 31, and needs to be considered when entering a position in SYF in late January.

Closing Thoughts

The Seasonality Almanac Dashboard uses close-to-close (CC) performance, so one looking to take these trades has a few options. One could enter positions on the second-last trading day of January and exit at the close of the last trading day of January, or enter at the Open of the last day of January if conditions are favorable. It’s worth considering, with overnight or even intraday trades, even though one has curated a high-probability trade, the market could interfere with its own agenda (that being what is most probable to occur). Most stocks tend to be impacted by larger market moves, so it is an advantage to hedge any trades in some way. Even with this in mind, why trade probability-blind, when you can trade hedged, with the Odds!

By taking a quick look at the summary numbers at the bottom of the dashboard (Positive & Negative Values by % Change, Percentage of Symbols outperforming relative to SPY), we can see that 63% of stocks in the dashboard that meet our filter criteria have a negative expectation for the last trading day this month. In addition to this, we can also see that just over half the stocks are still expected to outperform the S&P 500 ETF. This can help set the context for February as well.

If you’re a trader or investor, then we highly recommend that you take our Seasonality Dashboard course. In this course, not only will you learn more about why seasonality patterns exist and how to better utilize the Seasonal Almanac Dashboard but also have access to exclusive insights from some of the world's leading traders on using probability-based approaches for trading.