Next Tuesday, 2 April, will be the first trading day (FTD) of April (and therefore also of the second quarter).

As explained in the 2013 edition of the Almanac, the market has a tendency to be strong on the FTD of a month. And this effect has been even more pronounced in recent years.

The April FTD has been the second strongest month FTD of the year: since 1984 the FTSE 100 Index has increased on average 0.47% on this day.

From 2000 the average return on the day has been even higher at 0.79%; and from 2003 the market has never fallen on this day.

The following chart shows the returns for every April FTD since 1984.