VOLATILITY

This year has been extraordinarily turbulent. In fact, 2011 ranks “among the most volatile market years on record,” says Oppenheimer. When you look at the average absolute daily price changes of the S&P 500, the period from July through the middle of November 2011 averaged 1.8 percent. This is about a percent higher than the 60-year average (0.8%), and just barely above 2008’s daily price changes (over the course of the entire year).