by Laura Conaway

Nick writes:

I've noticed that it seems like a lot of the big single-day crashes have occurred in the final week of October such as:

 

Oct 28 1929 - 12.82% drop

Oct 29 1929 - 11.73% drop

Oct 26 1987 - 8.04% drop

Oct 27 1997 - 7.18% drop

Oct 19 1987 - 22.61% drop

Also if you look at the top twenty single-day declines (in percentage points) in the DJ (including 2008), 13 of the 20 occurred in late September, October or early November. Why is that? And do we have anything to worry about this week based on the date? I remember something coming up about the coincidence of the date back in Oct 1997 when there was the big drop. Are stock market traders superstitious about dates or something?

Could it have something to do with earnings season, maybe, when companies reveal how well or poorly they're doing? We're in one now, and it's so not pretty.

Nick includes Wikipedia's handy list of bad days on Wall Street. (I just fixed this link.)