A Point Isn’t A Point Anymore

Not all that long ago, back when your pundit was a pup, 100 Dow points was a big deal. 100 Dow points would be more than 10% on the market value of the Dow.

Today, 100 points is 1% of the Dow, almost. 600 points or 500 points aren’t as big as they used to be. In October of 1987, Monday the 19th to be exact, the Dow lost 508 points in one day. Back then, it was 22% of the Dow’s value the previous day. Don’t even think about what that would take today. Keeping in mind that the Dow at 11000 is a lot different than the Dow at 1000, the trouble a lot of people have is relating to daily changes that are frightening by their size, but really aren’t that unusual. Today’s 300 point change is the same as a 30 point change on one tenth the market price. Read more