Seasonal Patterns I Focus on Throughout the Year

I am an options trader.

I have a variety of ‘Rules-Based’ option trading styles.

By rules-based trading, I am talking about spotting a pattern and then quantifying it. You have to be able to see how it performed in the past, tweak it if you can and see how that tweak worked (further quantifying it), but don’t over tweak. Then, if you are satisfied with the results, trade it going forward.

The trading styles are Volatility, Momentum, Statistical, Contrarian, and Seasonal.

It is that last style that I want to focus on here.

Seasonal Trading

I recently posted a video to my YouTube channel. The video is Overseas TURMOIL – Stock Market is UNSURE. Here’s How to Capitalize and PROFIT!

In this video I speak to the fact we have 2 upcoming holidays over the summer and one at the end / close to the start of the Fall season. I talk about what I intend to do around these time frames. Here is an image from the video.

Where some traders execute buying an option the week before the holiday with the intent to sell it the day before it, the results are mixed and aren’t as consistent as I want.

There is a better way and using seasonal data helps me achieve better results.

When I say seasonal I am not saying tax season or back-to-school season.

I am referencing periods of time. Specific periods of time in which a security trades in a consistent fashion. The security may trade higher or lower it doesn’t matter to me as I know there are options, calls, and puts, and a variety of options strategies that I can use to capitalize on a move higher or lower over these time frames.

I am looking for a security that has a habit of trading higher or lower from one date to a date further out. I want to see if it does so at an acceptable percentage of time, say 90% up to 100%. Those are percentages so I’d feel confident in my chance for success on a new trade, (based on that seasonal, specific time-frame pattern).

And yes, there is a scanning tool I use called Money Calendar that has found stocks and ETF’s that have traded higher or lower 10 out of the past 10 years. That is where I get that 90%-100% figure.

Not all patterns and seasonal patterns work 100% of the time, but the Money Calendar can and does find those that have done so over the past 10 years.

There are other seasonal patterns I trade when the setup feels right.

They happen over the year and here is an example. There is a pattern that happens during the month that I call the 911 or the 9-11 trade. It is based on the SPY success of trading higher from the open on the 9th trade day of the month to the closing price of the 11th trade day of the month.

I use the options on the SPY, because it is the security with the most options traded on it and since it isn’t an exceptionally long duration of a trade – only 3 trading days – I need an ETF that can make enough of a price move for its options to then turn out profitable.

Time Frames of the Patterns

In the example above it is what I would consider a weekly seasonal pattern.

I do not trade daily or intra-day patterns as I don’t do day trades.

My trades are weekly up to yearly.

With my option trades based on Money Calendar I focus mainly on monthly seasonal pattern time frames. The sweet spot is 30-day patterns, but in times of price volatility in the markets I will search 40-60-day patterns.

*NOTE: It doesn’t matter to me if the patterns I educate my subscribers on have a time frame of a weekly pattern or monthly pattern, when it comes to trading an option based on that time frame the options expiration I consider are those that expire just past the end date of the pattern, (sometimes the option expiration may be on the last day of the pattern).

What the Money Calendar does is scan millions of data points to find securities that have a 90% or 100% success rate of trading higher or lower from the open on one start date to a closing price on a further out date, (end date).

This is a month view (June) for Money Calendar. We have both the number of candidates (out of our current, curated list of 325+ securities) that met the criteria I am looking for, which is a success rate of trading higher or lower 90 or 100% of the time over the past 10 years over the range of days in the pattern.

The darker the green the more bullish patterns and the darker the red the more bearish patterns.

From there I can click on an actual date and get the details on all the securities for that date with additional statistics. Let me show you a portion of June 4, 2025.

The purpose of this image is to show you the additional data I analyze, such as Accuracy, End Date, Last Loser, and Power Meter. I will have education later in the year breaking these columns down and how we use them to further filter my choice on which of these securities I choose to place an option trade.

I can custom set my numbers of days in the pattern, (I am showing an example in the image above searching patterns in the 5-60 days range) but I focus mainly on those 20-30 calendar days in length.

Right now, with this education I simply want to educate you on the patterns through the year I map out and consider trading options on so you too can have a map of the seasonal patterns for the year.

Yearly Pattern Map

I’d love to put these patterns on a calendar image for you, but since the start and end dates may be a specific day of the month, the actual dates are not going to be the same each week or month.

I would encourage you all to get your monthly calendar printouts or in your calendars you can find online and enter data for these patterns and map them out on your own.

Here are some seasonal patterns that I have for me. If other patterns come about or I missed one here I will highlight it as it or they come up through the year. IF there is a primary ticker I trade with the pattern I will include that.

Weekly Seasonal Pattern:

• 911: (SPY the 9th trading day through the 11th trading day of the month. Do not count holiday days or weekend days). I am not saying trade the date of the 9th to the 11th either. I am teaching to consider the trade over the trading days of the month. For example, the 9th trade day for June is the 12th and the 11th trade day is the 17th.

• Last 2/ First 4:  Same as above but the start of the pattern is the second to last trade day for the month through the 4th trade day of the following month.

• Santa Claus Rally: It used to be this was a pattern where expectations were for the markets to trade higher the week period after Christmas and until the firsts week of the year.

There are some that trade the week prior to Christmas. And as of late people are calling the move weeks before Christmas going in to the holiday or until the first of the year as the Santa Claus Rally.

I tend to favor trading options on the SPY or look towards the stocks at the time with the best momentum over starting at least a week prior to Christmas and riding it until the first week of the new year.

Monthly Seasonal Patterns:

• Money Calendar: Focus on the patterns in length of 20-30 calendar days. And my tools is where I find these.

Multi-Month Seasonal Patterns:

• Oil and Energy Pattern:  This is a pattern that happens most every year where there is a rise in price on oil and energy stocks from Mid-February through Mid-July.

The security I tend to focus options trading on with this is United States Oil Fund, LP (USO). Then I also look for oil stocks for Money Calendar patterns in this 6-month period of time as well.

The expiration is either 3rd Friday in July or out to September.

• Sell in May and Go Away:  This is a period of time from May 1st until October 31 when the markets are deemed in a lackluster trading mode. It’s not that the markets will definitely trade lower, it’s just that they may not show as robust a price move higher.

This then means November 1 until the last trading day in April shows a more robust price move higher.

My recent report regarding Sell in May and the approach to options trading at that time speaks to the way my data has been updated. Based on my recent findings I go by the mantra Stay in May and Make Money Today.

Yearly Seasonal Patterns: Two popular ones are Dogs of the Dow and its variation Flying Five, also known as the Puppies of the Dow.

This is where one buys an equal dollar amount of the top 10 highest yielding dividend paying stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average index on the first trading day of the year and holding until the last trading day of  the year.

The Flying Five is the same investing approach as the Dogs of the Dow, its just that one buys the 5 lowest priced of the Dogs.

Really only you know your trading and investing personality. You know if you are more of a long-term investor and trader or shorter-term.

That distinction alone will help you determine which of these seasonal patterns you focus on. You may also have an assessment between you and your broker as to what is best suited for your portfolio.

I leave it up to you to determine which ones you wish to focus on and learn more about.

Know that through the year and longer I will bring up more education for you on these seasonal patterns and an options trading approach to consider based on them. I will also bring education on the other option styled of trading mentioned at the start of this education.

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Toms Option Tools scan the markets for bullish and bearish trade opportunities using our proprietary scans and strategy algorithms. TTR Darknet finds bullish entries based on triple stack channel collisions. Money Calendar identifies seasonal patterns with at least 90% accuracy looking back 10 years. Weekly Cash Clock finds short term opportunities that last a week on average. Microcurrency Trader applies Darknet technology and moving averages to cryptocurrencies. Velocity Trader utilizes volume spike and Velocity indicators on custom stock lists. Quantum Scripts scans the markets for momentum acceleration signals and employs Quantum noise filters. Optimal Trader finds directional pre-earnings opportunities that are optimized for entry date, stock movement, and volatility surge. My Trades tracks the profit/loss of your trades, displays stock charts and risk graphs, creates new trades, and edits existing trades. Morning Report provides top 10 option rankings in 6 categories each day.

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