Business

Summer lovin’ costs Dow 208 points

Some Wall Street traditions die hard.

Investors yesterday proved as much when they sliced nearly 1 percent off the Dow Jones industrial average in the last 30 minutes of trading — which happened to be the last day of May.

The adage “sell in May and go away” appeared to be very much on their minds.

The late-day decline left the Dow down a whopping 208 points, or 1.4 percent, to close at 15,115.57.

Of course, for most of the month, selling was the last thing on investors’ minds as the Dow gained a robust 3.3 percent in May before yesterday’s trading.

With yesterday’s sell-off, the Dow finished the month up 1.9 percent — and is up 15.4 percent for the year.

“In a thin market, all you need is one or two big money managers to reassess their view and the market can go down quickly,” Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities, told the AP.

The sudden decline suggests Wall Streeters may have been seeking to do some last minute profit-taking before the summer doldrums officially begin.

Watchers said the declines could also have been due to end-of-the-month rebalancing by mutual funds.

The S&P 500, meanwhile, fell 1.4 percent to end the day at 1,630.74 — and is up 3.8 percent for the month and 14.3 percent in 2013.

The “sell in May and then go away” concept in based on the theory that stocks historically decline in the summer months when Wall Street players hit the beach.

According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, since 1950, the average annual gain by the Dow between November and April is 7.5 percent, compared to just 0.3 percent between May and the end of October.