Sell in May and Go Away—Starting With These 3 Stocks

Key Points

• Oxford Club Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld argues that even in a strong market, crowded positioning and weakening fundamentals can matter more than the calendar.
• Historical S&P 500 data since 1945 shows average gains of roughly 7% from November through April versus just 2% from May through October, supporting seasonal portfolio discipline.
• Lichtenfeld puts DexCom, Colgate-Palmolive, and Oracle on his sell list, arguing the stocks look out of sync with their setups—whether that’s overcrowded sentiment, stretched valuations, or heavy balance-sheet and forward-commitment risks that don’t match the near-term momentum.

The market is running hot. Record highs, a strong tech rally, and an AI trade that has investors wondering whether the old rules still apply.

But Marc Lichtenfeld, Chief Income Strategist at the Oxford Club, isn't spending this moment looking for what to buy. He's looking at what to unload.

"Do you want to be right, or do you want to make money?" That question frames his entire argument.

This May, three stocks made his sell list—not because the calendar says so, but because the fundamentals, the charts, and the positioning all point in the same direction.

Going back to 1945, the S&P 500 has averaged roughly 7% gains between November and April, compared to just 2% from May through October. That's not a crash, but it's not the environment to be holding weak positions in. The old "sell in May and go away" expression has data behind it.

Lichtenfeld isn't calling for a market collapse. Prices are strong, and he expects that to continue. What he is doing is using this moment to trim names that aren't earning their spot in a portfolio.

DexCom: Too Many Bulls, Too Little Momentum

DexCom NASDAQ: DXCM has been falling for five years. Not correcting—falling.

And yet 20 out of 24 Wall Street analysts currently rate it a Buy, and only about 4% of the float is sold short.

That kind of lopsided optimism, Lichtenfeld says, is a red flag, not a green light.

The company makes continuous glucose monitors, which is a genuinely growing market. The problem is that DexCom’s grip on that growth looks less secure than it used to. Abbott Laboratories NYSE: ABT and its FreeStyle Libre platform have been taking share, and DexCom has also had to contend with operational scrutiny, including an FDA warning letter dated March 4, 2025, tied to inspections in 2024. At the same time, GLP-1 drugs are changing the diabetes landscape, potentially altering how intensively some patients monitor glucose over time. 

Revenue is still rising, but the pace has cooled—an uncomfortable mix for a stock that typically gets rewarded only when growth is clearly accelerating.

As a former sell-side analyst, Lichtenfeld knows why the consensus remains bullish: career risk, groupthink, and investment banking relationships all push Wall Street toward Buy ratings. When consensus reaches extreme levels, he tends to look the other way.

Colgate-Palmolive: A Stock With Nowhere to Go

Colgate-Palmolive NYSE: CL isn't a disaster. It's something more frustrating: a $69 billion company with a 2.5% dividend yield, two years of flat performance, and no catalyst on the horizon.

The push-and-pull is straightforward. Brand loyalty is real—Colgate toothpaste is a habit for a lot of households—but not every product in the basket enjoys that same pricing power.  Ajax cleaner and Palmolive dish soap, for example, fall into categories with low switching costs. And when grocery bills are elevated, shoppers scrutinize every line item, and generic alternatives become a real threat.

That’s why the stock’s “defensive” appeal can be misleading at the margin: if consumers trade down in the lower-switching categories, the upside case gets harder to justify. Insider selling has picked up this year, with no purchases to offset it. And with the shares trading at roughly 23x earnings despite low-to-mid single-digit growth, there isn’t much valuation cushion if results come in merely “fine.”

If you're looking for defensive positioning, Lichtenfeld says there are better options. For example, Black Hills Corporation NYSE: BKH, a utility with data center exposure in Wyoming, offers a stronger yield and a genuine AI-adjacent growth story. And in a broader sense, certain healthcare and REIT names can offer clearer line-of-sight into cash flows. Colgate-Palmolive doesn’t offer that same combination of income support and visibility right now.

Oracle: The AI Trade's Most Dangerous Bet

Oracle NYSE: ORCL has bounced sharply off its lows. The momentum looks real, and Lichtenfeld still thinks it could be the poster child for when the AI bubble eventually breaks.

The core issue is the balance sheet. Oracle has disclosed roughly $250 billion in additional lease commitments tied largely to data centers and cloud capacity arrangements, commitments that do not hit the balance sheet in the same way traditional debt does until they begin. The company is expected to be $25 billion free cash flow negative this year, $26 billion next year, and roughly $100 billion in the hole by 2030. Against $39 billion in cash and $125 billion in existing debt, that math is tight.

To fund the gap, Oracle will have to raise capital—either diluting shareholders through equity issuance or taking on more debt at rates that won't be cheap given its balance sheet.

The bigger risk is what the entire buildout depends on: OpenAI and Oracle’s Stargate partnership has been described as exceeding $300 billion over the next five years, tied to massive data center and compute expansion. That scale is what makes the economics of the buildout work. But OpenAI’s CFO has reportedly raised concerns internally about whether the company can hit its growth goals fast enough to justify that pace of spending. 

If demand or growth assumptions slip, Oracle could be left with enormous forward capacity and financing commitments that are harder to absorb.

Compare that to Meta Platforms NASDAQ: META, Amazon NASDAQ: AMZN, Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOGL, and Microsoft NASDAQ: MSFT—four companies that have been cited as collectively planning AI-related spending on the order of $700 billion, with far larger cash-flow buffers to absorb volatility. Oracle does not have that cushion. 

Discipline Over Calendar

The "sell in May and go away" rule isn't about panic; it's about discipline. DexCom, Colgate-Palmolive, and Oracle each have their own specific problems, but they share one thing in common: the risk/reward case can weaken when sentiment, valuation, and financing needs stop lining up.

This is why Lichtenfeld thinks there are better places to put capital right now. Whether the summer slowdown follows the historical script or the AI trade rewrites it, holding stocks that aren't working rarely pays off.