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Thoughts on Market Volatility

For a long-term perspective, check out the intraday volatility in the Dow since 1928. Over this 80-year period, the average swing is about 1.8%. There have been only 64 days when the intraday volatility exceeded 8%. That's right -- 64 days out of over 20,300 market days. If they were evenly spread, that would be about one 8% plus volatility day every 15 months.

Here's the amazing part -- fourteen of them have occurred since September 29th. The Crash of 1929 had only eight. Another thirty followed during the ten-year Great Depression. Four were clustered around the Crash of 1987. Only two happened during the nasty 2000-2002 bear.

Now, guess how many of these volatile days ended with a gain versus a loss. Find the answer here: dshort.com/