You’re not alone. You’re just like the cowboys of old who got worried when, on patrol, they perceived trouble when things got too quiet.
Yet there is surprisingly little support for such concern when it comes to the stock market. Equities do not do worse, on average, when things are quiet than when the market is volatile. In fact, there is some evidence that they may actually do better during such periods of relative calm.
Consider the number of trading days in which there has been at least a 200 point difference between the intraday high for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +0.35% and its intraday low. There were 81 such days last year, out of a total of 252 trading days — about one out of every three, on average. The year before last, 2010, was relatively quieter, but even in that year there were 42 such days.
So far this year, in contrast, there has been just one. That’s equivalent to an annual rate of around eight — just one-tenth last year’s pace.
