As we close out September, the bearish month of the year (ha! woo ha! ha ha ha!) and, in turn, the third quarter, let’s see where the big indexes stand percentage-wise in 2017. Here’s the Dow Composite:
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Volatility Smothered to Death
Any time someone tries to tell you that September is a bearish month………just punch them.
Pee Wee
A good friend of mine (a Sloper from Mexico, and a very cool fellow overall) sent me the chart below, which illustrates the biggest drop in the S&P 500 for any given year, going way back to when Teddy Roosevelt was in office. In case anyone didn’t mention it to you already, 2017 is the most godawful year so far (for bears) in that entire century, since its drawdown is the puniest ever.
Nine Years Past
I remember it like it was yesterday. But it was yesterday……..plus nine years. That is, September 19, 2008. I was at Prophet’s office, and the CEO of thinkorswim, Lee Barba, was visiting. I had sold Prophet to Investools (its prior name) in early 2005, and Lee would come visit us from time to time to check in, share ideas, and catch up.
The market had been roiled off and on in the first nine months of 2008, and the team of Bernanke and Paulson had enough. During the trading day, several gargantuan initiatives were announced, including TARP and the banning of short-selling in about 800 stocks. (You may notice during the multi-hundred percent gain of the past eight years, no one has suggested banning BUYING stocks. But I digress).
Anyway, the reaction was immediate and ferocious. In the span of just two days, the Dow Industirals exploded 780 points higher, and with the big, bad bears banned, it seemed that Wall Street’s eleven-month dip in stocks was at an end.
It wasn’t:
Tech Wreck? Never Happened!
Kind of like how Stalin used to “disappear” people……….
