Given the upcoming Labor Day holiday, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at market action between Labor Day and the end of the year. For this observation, I chose the Nasdaq 100 ETF the PowerShares QQQ Trust Series 1QQQ, +0.37% and I conducted a performance review for that ETF between Labor Day and Dec. 31 for every year between 2000 and 2013. The results show that there have been only three down periods over the past 14 years, and the average return has been 5.9%. The down years were 2000 and 2008, no surprises there, and also 2012. In addition, if we exclude the down years, the average return for the Nasdaq 100 between Labor Day and Dec. 31 has been 15.35%. This suggests that the market has predominately rallied after Labor Day even though it has experienced undulations following Labor Day on multiple occasions. The recent low-volume, one-sided market rally leading up to Labor Day causes any intelligent investor to question the rally because statistics show that low-volume rallies are very untrustworthy. In addition to that, research has also shown that bullish sentiment has recently skyrocketed, and smaller investors are investing money aggressively, each concerning signs to the Smart Money as well. However, if the market predominantly increases, and increases aggressively, after Labor Day, the debate absolutely begins to become clearer. At this juncture, the little guy is investing aggressively, bullish sentiment is extremely high, the market has rallied in one direction on low volume, and market leaders usually return from their summer doldrums after Labor Day. The question is will those market leaders look at this market and decide to take profits, or will they look at the historical performance of the market after Labor Day and decide to wait it out? For the record, at Stock Traders Daily, our longer-term strategy, The Strategic Plan, took profits from our two-times long DJIA position through the ProShares Ultra Dow30 ETF DDM, +0.18% when profit stops hit, and it is in cash for the time being. link