Well, October is off to lousy start, with the Dow losing more than 200 points yesterday. What does the rest of the month have in store? History suggests that it will be a bumpy ride.
Stockwatcher and columnist Mark Hulbert points out that October has historically been the most volatile month on the investing calendar. Measuring the standard deviation of the daily change in the Dow, October has been a whopping 40 percent more volatile than the other 11 months.
For long-term investors, this shouldn't be much of a problem. As hard as it can be to stomach market swings, at this point we should be expecting them - and in every month, not just October. And remember, volatility doesn't signal bad news; the market can be volatile on its way up as easily as it can be volatile on its way down.
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