David Moenning's Daily State of the Markets: 10/24 Oct 24, 2008 10:03AM

What Does It Mean?

For those of you that like a little movement in your daily dose of stock market action, you were not disappointed yesterday and you most certainly won’t be today. Yesterday stocks bounded back and forth and back and forth all day long, moving 100 points every five minutes or so with seemingly little effort – or better yet, with even less reason. In case you missed it, the Dow swung in a 550 point range on Thursday with at least 11 different swings of 150 points over ten to fifteen minute spans. So yes, Virginia, volatility definitely remains a little elevated. But the question is what does it mean?

One of the things we’ve talked about extensively in our Crash Playbook is that volatility tends to stick around for a while, even after a panic low has been seen. And so, while it may not be ...