Below is a table of highs, lows and closes from October 23rd to November 14th, 1929, courtesy of Yahoo!. (Unfortunately, their date function is stuck in 1969, so you have to count up from the bottom.)
Key dates:
- September 2nd. Pre-crash high water mark: Dow 381.
- October 25th, Black Thursday. From the previous close of 305, down 11% in early trading, a swing into the black, and a close down 2%. (eerily similar to last Friday).
- October 28th, Black Monday. Down 14.7% intraday, 13.5% at the close.
- October 29th, Black Tuesday. Down 18.5% intraday, 11.7% at the close.
- October 30th and 31st: Huge two-day rally, 19%.
- November 13th: Bottom for 1929: Dow closed at 198, down 48% in 10 weeks. It then rallied to 294 by late April, before declining to 41 by July 5, 1932.
Here’s a visual aid (wider time frame):
Source: sharelynx.com
Look at the rally from the 29th, Black Tuesday, to the 31st: 19% by closing values, and 33% intraday. So far in the Panic of ’08, we are up 11% from the close and 21% intraday from last (Black) Friday.
The rally in ’29 was a wave four bounce within wave three, and it failed spectacularly. I’m not saying this wave four of three bounce will end in exactly the same way, but I think we have yet to see the lows for this fall:
Interesting. But this time…who knows. I covered a day early last week, and naturally have some regrets about that as I left a lot of money for the taking. But this market has come back from the dead again and again, even when you thought such a rebound not even remotely possible. Right now I am 90+% in cash, i.e. marginally long, but looking more for a bearish re-entry than for opportunities to go bigger long.