Try this out your self

Use a free stock data source like finance yahoo and record from the dates , first trading day in October and April, the opening prices of a bond fund and a small cap fund.

The two I like are IWM and TLT.   Write them down and then use the data for a hypothetical set of trades.  Take a starting point like 1/10/2009 as the entry to buying IWM and the exit first day in April the market is open. Repeat each year and record the results.

Now the April date record TLT price as an entry and the exit first trading day the next October.  Do the math and repeat for each year.

The 2008 into 2009 was not good for this simple investing strategy but starting 1/10/2009 all trades were closed with a gain.

What did you come up with?