This year, of course, April has ended on a gloomy note, with a global selloff of equities occurring during the final days of the month, a result, in part, of disappointing economic data for the U.S., including anemic gross domestic product growth for the first quarter of the year. At such times, it may be tempting to embrace cash investments to avoid the volatility that has been produced by equities.

A handful of studies, furthermore, have shown that there may be merit to the strategy of selling stocks in May and waiting until Labor Day or even Halloween to reallocate assets to equities. Yet, markets conditions and investor behavior continuously change, so investors should rethink the temptation to bail out of equities.

Selling in May is an offshoot of a strategy once common in England known as "Sell in May and go away. Stay away till St. Leger's Day." It was based on the idea that movers and shakers of finance vacationed during summer months and didn’t return to work until after the end of the horse racing season, which had traditionally ended after St. Leger’s Day in mid-September.

In the U.S. the practice of selling equities in the spring reflects the belief that the asset class will underperform as brokers, portfolio managers, and other financial professionals spend their summers in the Hamptons and other vacation hot spots rather than trade equities. At least some studies maintain that the strategy has been beneficial in recent years.

For the last 10 years, markets were down 60% of the time periods starting in May and ending after Labor Day, according to Daily Finance. Equities were either flat or up 30% of the time and were up substantially only 10% of the time. Daily Finance, furthermore, maintains that using the strategy each year since 1950 would have resulted in better returns than staying invested for the full 12-month period of each year.

Yet, advisors who assume that the sell in May strategy may continue to generate superior results need to understand that investing patterns change over time and that a variety of factors drive equity markets even when the summer doldrums hit and financial professionals break out their Bermuda shorts.

Last year, for example, the raging bull market continued throughout the summer months. Investors who decided to sell in May, therefore, would have missed out on equity gains—the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq climbed approximately 6% and 14% respectively during the summer months.

Technology, meanwhile, is revamping how American’s view vacations as portable Internet-connected devices and online trading platforms make it difficult for financial professionals to disconnect from trading platforms during vacations.

Indeed, a recent survey by TradeKing Group concluded that 55% of investors reject the sell in May adage. In doing so, they cite the role of digital technology in keeping financial professionals constantly connected to trading platforms and workplaces as a reason for the belief that the vacation season won’t result in the underperformance of equities.

The sell in May strategy, furthermore, is a broad brush approach that may be comparable to throwing out the baby with the bath water. Indeed, Ben Jacobsen, a finance professor at Massey University in New Zealand, and Nuttawat Visaltanachoti, who is a senior lecturer at that school, have concluded that food, agriculture, leisure, multimedia, retailing, and utilities stocks generate returns during the summer months that are comparable to returns that occur during other months of the year.

With that in mind, it may make sense to seek stocks of compelling companies in those industries during the summer months rather than completely exiting equities.