Pedestrians walk by the New York Stock Exchange in New York.
Getty Images
The closed out the month of February up about 6 percent for 2017.
And if history serves as a guide, the strong start bodes well for the rest of the year.
Using hedge fund analytics tool Kensho, CNBC conducted a study to find out how the index performs the remainder of the year after gaining over 5 percent in the first two months.
Since 1980, there have been 12 other occasions that met this criteria, according to Kensho.
During these years, the final 10 months trade positively 83 percent of the time.
Further, the median return during these periods was 12.5 percent.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal, parent of CNBC, is a minority investor in Kensho.