Putting Corrections in Perspective: The (Usually) Sunny Fourth Quarter
October 30, 2015
With the S&P 500 crossing into “correction” territory (down at least 10% from its high) in the closing days of September for the third time since August this year, investors are understandably anxious. After all, the U.S. stock benchmark has been in a secular bull market since March 2009, making it longer than the previous bull market, which ran a little more than five years, from late October 2002 to October 2007. The downswing made prophets of a host of market watchers, some of whom had been calling for a correction since last spring. And then there was that nasty, historic intra-day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 1,000 points on August 24, after which it rallied to close down nearly 600 points, which was certainly unsettling to many investors.
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