Dow: The good, the bad, the ugly
Posted on October 13th, 2008 – 4:29 PMBy Kara McGuire
Here’s food for thought: the daily DJIA index update — a laundry list of Dow stats that are e-mailed to me daily. Pay close attention to the first number. Up 11 percent. That feels good, doesn’t it? See, the market goes down and then it goes up.
Next, you’ll notice that the Dow makes history and breaks records all the time, which media types like myself never fail to point out. Today we experienced the biggest one-day percentage gain since 1933.That sounds pretty good too, doesn’t it?
Finally, so you don’t accuse me of being a Polyanna, yes, the market is still down a lot, and has a long way to go to recover (see the last half dozen bullet points).
As of October 13, 2008
- The DJIA, up 936.42 points, or 11.08%, to close at 9387.61.
- Snaps a string of eight straight losing days.
- Biggest one-day closing point gain ever.
- Biggest one-day percentage gain since March 15, 1933.
- 5th largest percent gain in the DJIA’s history.
- Intraday, the DJIA hit a high of 9427.99, up 976.80 points, or 12%.
- At its intraday low, the DJIA dipped to 8462.18.
- On an intraday basis at today’s high, the DJIA posted its biggest intraday point and percentage gain since 1995 (as far back as our database is populated — prior to that, theoretical highs and lows were used). A theoretical high is the high the DJIA would have hit if every single component hit its high at the same time. The theoretical high can differ greatly from the actual high which is why they are not comparable.
- It has dropped 4776.92 points, or 33.72%, from its record close of 14164.53, hit on October 9, 2007.
- It has dropped -28.11% from its 2008 close high of 13058.20, hit on May 2.
- Month-to-date, the DJIA is down -13.48%. In September, it closed down 6.00%.
- Year-to-date, it is down -29.23%.
- Down 33% from a year-ago-today.
7 Responses to "Dow: The good, the bad, the ugly"
One should definitely remember that the one-day gain in 1933 did not end the Great Depression in the slightest. I’ll feel better when there are no more records being set, just something more close to normal.
The biggest bounces occur during bear markets; they serve to convince the majority to keep putting their money into the markets. It’s unlikely we’ve seen the lows yet… markets don’t reverse longer-term like this.
I’d be more worried about too much debt in the economy than Wall Street’s numbers though.
-Ryan
Friday was a good day (time will tell) to buy - so a lesson learned is to keep some cash aside for shopping.
I find it interesting that people will go to great lengths to save money on a consumable…but then do nothing when stocks (and even TIPS) are on sale relative to other investments.
If you cashed out $100,000 and put it on the sidelines last week, you just lost out on $11,000 in gains.
I noticed an interesting quote from Mr Buffett today, who’s reportedly buying equities. “Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful.” Ever the contrarian, apparently.
My investments are off way more than 30% over the last year, more like 40-50 and the thing that gets me is there is the saying that all kinds of money can be made either which way the market is moving… I wish I had the resources or know how to take advantage.
remember: if you lost money, drinking
heavily is an option to soothe the pain of financial loss.
