Stocks look spooked, but Halloween selloffs are rare

view original post

Disappointing earnings have left investors spooked. But steep Halloween selloffs are actually quite rare, especially when stocks are sitting on a year-to-date gain.

In fact, Thursday’s drop would be the worst Halloween showing for stocks in at least 30 years — with the caveat that this analysis only includes years where stocks were up year to date, according to Ryan Detrick, chief investment officer at Carson Group.

Prior to Thursday, October had been an unusually calm month for markets, especially for an election year. Through Wednesday’s close, stocks had seen an average intraday swing of just 0.8 percentage points so far this month, putting the S&P 500 on track for its second-least-volatile election-year October of the past 50 years, Detrick said.