the past decade has brought particularly strong months of july for the s  p 500  according to carson group and the firms chief market strategist expects a similarly good performance this year in the past 10 years the s  p 500 gained 33 in an average july making it the best month on average for returns over the same time period carson data shows  by comparison when looking all the way back to 1950 july is the fourth best month with an average return of just 11 according to data analyzed by the stock traders almanac nine of the past 10 julys have ended positively compared with a july win rate of about 58 going back to 1950 part of the performance over the past decade can be attributed to julys strong second quarter earnings reports when stacked up against wall street expectations an especially prominent trend the past two years according to ryan detrick carsons chief market strategist theres been a lot of worry and a lot of fear about potential recessions he said an earnings season comes in and you realize things arent so bad and we think thats one of the potential biggest reasons why in our view weve seen such strength the last decade spx 3m mountain the s  p 500 detrick expects this years performance for the trading month which kicks off at mondays open to look more like a continuation of the past decades trend than the longerterm historical average partly thats because theres already a summer rally taking place which detrick said has been driven by investor expectations for an improvement in the broad economy his positive outlook has also been bolstered as the breadth of stocks driving the rally expanded in june beyond technology to include sectors such as industrials the s  p 500 is up more than 6 so far this quarter and more than 14 year to date to be sure summer rallies have typically scored as the weakest of the four seasonal advances according to the strock traders almanac while the coming earnings season may show a yearoveryear decline in profits detrick said the potential to exceed alreadylowered expectations from wall street could push stocks higher cooling inflation data may also make investors optimistic that the federal reserve is nearly done hiking interest rates which in turn would improve the outlook for growth stocks a continuation of those trends could lead the s  p 500 to an alltime high in the second half of the year detrick said the realization that the economys on better footing could be the spark plug to keep the surprise summer rally going detrick said if more good news comes like we think it can in the form of a better economy than people give it credit that could keep stocks doing pretty well