I wrote this Expiry Fridays article about weeks with Expiry Fridays which shows that if measured by the DJIA then those weeks are generally more bullish than your average week.

The average gain per week in the DJIA from 1986 to 2005 is 0.205% but if you only look at weeks with expiry Friday's then that gain is 0.326% and if you exclude weeks with expiry Fridays then the gain is 0.195%.

If you want a copy of the spreadsheet that I used for calculating this then just reply to this topic and I'll email it to you in a ZIP file. (You do NOT need to include your email address in the reply.)

Monday 9/11 starts an expiry Friday week. Last expiration Friday week had 2 big down days on Monday and Friday but a remarkable recovery for the rest of the week and it almost finished positive.

What further I would like to understand are the option expiry weeks' results divided into two sections: when the "maximum pain" level is above or below the current price at the start of the expiry week.
For a discussion of "maximum pain" see
http://www.ez-pnf.com/ezpopt_1.htm
and see
http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/streetools/options/option_montage.aspx?ticker_symbol=qqqq

wagross: That would be an interesting study. I wish I had the time right now to run it.

Triple expiration this week.