Watch Indian Tractor Sales to See Where Gold Is Headed

Equity investors have long relied on ``sell in May and go away'' as an inexplicably effective way of timing the market. Here's another: Don't buy gold outside of India's wedding season.

Six of the 10 worst-performing months for spot gold over the past decade have occurred in periods with no auspicious dates for Hindu marriages, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Buying the precious metal at the end of October and selling at the end of April as the approaching monsoon puts a dampener on wedding plans would have resulted in average gains of 6 percent in the past 10 years. Following the reverse strategy and holding through the wet season would have yielded just 2.5 percent:

Rather than parsing the words of U.S. Federal Reserve statements and the color of Janet Yellen's jackets, gold investors would do well to take a look at the state of the Indian economy as it heads into its peak gold-buying period this month with Diwali, the biggest of all Hindu festivals, and the start of the wedding season.