What is it about October 19?

If you look at the stock market for October 19 for the years ending in 7, you will notice that the stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, was either down or flat, unless October 19 happened to fall on a weekend, then the next business day, the market was up.

Here is the percentage change in the Dow average for those years. Shown is the date measured, the change, and what day Oct. 19 actually fell on.

10/19/2007 .... -1.55%* Friday
10/20/1997 .... 0.9% Sunday
10/19/1987 .... -22.6% Monday
10/19/1977 .... -1.0% Wednesday
10/19/1967 .... 0.0% Thursday
10/21/1957 .... 2.5% Saturday
10/20/1947 .... 1.0% Sunday
10/19/1937 .... 0.9% Tuesday

This is the percentage change so far at the time I wrote this around 10:15am PST on October 19.

By Fred Fuld at Stockerblog.com