This data should be mostly right but some of this just depends on how you measure. Mostly I am counting every swing of more than 2.5%. Calendar count could be a off by a day or two because it is weekdays.

From October 2011 low, there have been 31 drops of at least -2.5%. About half of these, 16 to be exact, stay in the benign -2.5% to -5% category. Sounds great right? But 11 have been between -5% and -10%. The remainder have been the scary drops of -10.3% (11/2011) and -10.5% (6/2012), then -12.5% (8/2015) and -12.9% (1/2016).

Right now as bad as it feels SPX is only -3% from the highs, and calendar count is already a 20 day drop since the high was on 8/15 (indexes vary of course, with NDX and RUT highs just 9/7).

So what will it be?

-2.5 to -5% buy chance
-5 to -10% pullback
-10% or more scare

To try to answer this question, let's take a look at a few quarterly and monthly charts in the next post.

Dates of swing highs and lows, then showing % drops and weekdays from the highs to low.

9/10/2016 -3.05%   20
8/15/2016
6/27/2016 -6.08%   14
6/8/2016
5/19/2016 -4.03%   22
4/20/2016
2/11/2016 -7.04%   9
2/1/2016
1/20/2016 -12.94%   17
12/29/2015
12/14/2015 -5.23%   10
12/1/2015
11/16/2015 -4.59%   10
11/3/2015
9/29/2015 -7.37%   9
9/17/2015
8/24/2015 -12.46%   26
7/20/2015
7/7/2015 -4.03%   12
6/22/2015
6/9/2015 -2.84%   15
5/20/2015
5/6/2015 -2.73%   8
4/27/2015
3/11/2015 -3.77%   11
2/25/2015
2/2/2015 -5.38%   26
12/29/2014
12/17/2014 -5.14%   9
12/5/2014
10/15/2014 -9.84%   19
9/19/2014
8/7/2014 -4.35%   11
7/24/2014
4/11/2014 -4.37%   6
4/4/2014
2/5/2014 -6.10%   16
1/15/2014
12/18/2013 -2.51%   14
11/29/2013
10/9/2013 -4.82%   15
9/19/2013
8/30/2013 -4.77%   21
8/2/2013
6/24/2013 -7.52%   24
5/22/2013
4/18/2013 -3.84%   6
4/11/2013
2/26/2013 -3.00%   6
2/19/2013
12/31/2012 -3.45%   10
12/18/2012
11/16/2012 -8.90%   46
9/14/2012
6/3/2012 -10.50%   24
5/1/2012
4/10/2012 -4.57%   7
4/2/2012
12/19/2011 -5.11%   9
12/7/2011
11/25/2011 -10.37%   22
10/27/2011