History suggests that a tough month is ahead for stocks

After three great months for stocks, February could bring some market gloom, according to MKM Partners chief market technician Jonathan Krinsky.

Krinsky points out that over the past 40 years, February has been the S&P 500's weakest month within the generally strong November to April period; stocks have risen a mere 0.06 percent in the average February, according to his work.

The short month has been crueler in years following elections. In the postelection Februaries since 1977, the S&P has fallen by 1.85 percent on average.

To his historical analysis Krinsky mixes in the fact that the market has gone 75 days without a daily decline of 1 percent or more. To him, this suggests that a slide of such magnitude is ahead — and "once you have that, you tend to see weaker-than-average returns over the next couple weeks."

That marked the market's third-straight losing session, but the S&P is still up about 1.9 percent in January. It rose 1.8 percent in December and 3.4 percent in November.

Taking a value investors' perspective, Eddy Elfenbein of the Crossing Wall Street blog agrees that the market could be set to slide 5 to 7 percent as earnings estimates come down, which would break a long period of placidity.

Like Krinsky, Elfenbein made clear that he doesn't want to "overstate this."

"It's probably a February and March story … and once that's out of the way, I think it looks very good for stocks," he said.

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