Overall, we expect the stock market to go higher. There is a good reason for that – the stock market is positive close to 54% of the days. A natural questions is whether this holds for other markets as well. There is inflation after all.
Looks like the stock market is more or less unique in that regard. A little bit of R magic over the last 10 years of back-adjusted data from CSIData, and we get:
| Market | Observations | % Positive | Mean Return | Median Return | BPV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Dollar | 2678 | 51.66 | 0.0199 | 0.0432 | 100000 |
| Soybean Oil | 2678 | 48.04 | -0.0135 | -0.0340 | 600 |
| British Pound | 2678 | 49.31 | -0.0043 | -0.0052 | 62500 |
| Corn | 2678 | 48.26 | 0.0219 | 0.0000 | 50 |
| Cocoa | 2673 | 50.49 | 0.0200 | 0.0343 | 10 |
| Canadian Dollar | 2678 | 49.87 | -0.0004 | 0.0000 | 100000 |
| Crude Oil | 2675 | 49.96 | -0.0321 | 0.0000 | 1000 |
| Cotton | 2674 | 49.91 | 0.0474 | 0.0000 | 500 |
| Euro | 2678 | 50.28 | -0.0061 | 0.0075 | 125000 |
| US Dollar Index | 2743 | 49.45 | 0.0038 | 0.0000 | 1000 |
| E-mini S&P 400 | 2679 | 54.37 | 0.0411 | 0.1056 | 100 |
| E-mini S&P 500 | 2679 | 54.48 | 0.0324 | 0.0794 | 50 |
| Feeder Cattle | 2678 | 51.21 | 0.0036 | 0.0294 | 500 |
| 5-Year US T-Note | 2678 | 50.47 | 0.0143 | 0.0068 | 1000 |
| Gold | 2675 | 51.91 | 0.0290 | 0.0371 | 100 |
| Copper | 2675 | 50.49 | 0.0262 | 0.0246 | 250 |
| Heating Oil | 2675 | 49.18 | -0.0173 | -0.0368 | 42000 |
| Japanese Yen | 2678 | 48.97 | -0.0089 | -0.0078 | 125000 |
| Coffee | 2673 | 49.03 | -0.0232 | -0.0086 | 375 |
| KC Wheat | 2678 | 48.23 | -0.0120 | -0.0379 | 50 |
| Lumber | 2678 | 46.17 | -0.0405 | -0.0811 | 110 |
| Live Cattle | 2678 | 48.86 | -0.0089 | 0.0000 | 400 |
| Lean Hogs | 2678 | 48.19 | -0.0378 | -0.0268 | 400 |
| Natural Gas | 2676 | 47.18 | -0.0783 | -0.0808 | 10000 |
| Nikkei | 2679 | 51.94 | 0.0283 | 0.0835 | 5 |
| E-mini Nasdaq | 2679 | 54.07 | 0.0490 | 0.1018 | 20 |
| Oats | 2678 | 48.86 | 0.0465 | 0.0000 | 50 |
| Orange Juice | 2674 | 50.39 | 0.0230 | 0.0336 | 150 |
| Palladium | 2675 | 52.09 | 0.0376 | 0.0803 | 100 |
| Platinum | 2675 | 51.72 | 0.0015 | 0.0618 | 50 |
| RBOB Gasoline | 2675 | 50.64 | -0.5827 | 0.0403 | 42000 |
| Rough Rice | 2678 | 47.33 | -0.0146 | -0.0402 | 2000 |
| Soybeans | 2678 | 50.84 | 0.4949 | 0.0768 | 50 |
| Sugar | 2673 | 47.64 | 0.0121 | -0.0446 | 1120 |
| Swiss Franc | 2678 | 49.08 | 0.0042 | -0.0082 | 125000 |
| Silver | 2675 | 53.14 | 0.0316 | 0.1146 | 50 |
| E-mini Russell 2000 | 2712 | 52.45 | 0.0436 | 0.0875 | 100 |
| 2-Year US T-Note | 2678 | 44.42 | 0.0051 | 0.0000 | 2000 |
| 10-Year US T-Note | 2678 | 51.59 | 0.0211 | 0.0212 | 1000 |
| 30-Year US T-Bond | 2678 | 51.21 | 0.0209 | 0.0313 | 1000 |
| Wheat | 2678 | 47.63 | -0.0230 | -0.0449 | 50 |
| E-mini Dow Jones | 2679 | 54 | 0.0324 | 0.0714 | 5 |
A quick scan through the table shows that most assets are certainly less extreme than the stock market. In summary, most markets can be treated as a fair coin on a daily basis, but be aware of the biased coins!