After 3 consecutive months of zero “risk on” or “risk off” days (per our definition), April finally added some to the tally – with 3 risk on days and 1 risk off day making for about 18% of the trading days in the risk on/risk off category. In this case, it took a horrible tragedy in Boston to cause a sufficiently large market sell-off, which then spurred 3 subsequent “risk on” days as the market erased those losses and continued to new highs.

(Disclaimer: past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.)

(Disclaimer: past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.)

We define risk on as an average gain of over 1% for “risk” assets; risk off is an average loss of over -1% for “risk” assets. (Click here for a more detailed breakdown.) Prior to 2008, the yearly average of risk on/risk off days stayed between 10% to 20%. So far, 2013 has gone in a very different direction, with only 4.9% of days this year qualifying as “risk on” or “risk off.”