Switch it up this year: Buy in May, till November stay

NEW YORK (May 29): "Sell in May and go away" is perhaps the oldest saw on Wall Street, but it appears there's no shortage of US mutual funds doing exactly that this year.

After all, the S&P 500 has delivered a total return, including reinvested dividends, of 10.8% over the last six months, essentially capturing all of the average rolling 12-month total return on the index since 1990, so why not cash in?

Indeed, political drama and high valuations are clearly driving some investors to take profits. American fund investors have yanked more than US$17 billion ($23 billion) from US stocks so far this month, data from fund tracker Lipper shows, with some US$10.1 billion in withdrawals in the latest week alone, the second biggest outflow for the year.

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