The Return of Volatility

The stock market’s volatility may be returning with a vengeance. A few years ago, the market’s daily swings calmed down dramatically.
Here’s a chart of the S&P 500’s daily changes since the beginning of 2002:

By historic standards, that’s a huge change. The “feel” of the market altered entirely in just a few months.
There hasn’t been a 2% or greater daily move in over 2-1/2 years (although we’ve come close). To give you an idea of how big a change that is, there were 43 such days in the second half of 2002.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 18th, 2006 at 12:34 pm

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