Periods of Financial Distress are also periods of significant swings in market price and sentiment, often intraday. Here is a list of the largest intraday swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average by points and by percents.
We can vividly recall one day in July 2002 when the Dow was down over 600 points and a short term bottom was made, when the money honey herself Maria Bartiromo bared her milky neck and pursed her lips to say 'capitulation,' at which point the Dow turned right around and we had a buying panic rally that took us back into the green in the period of about an hour.
Here is a chart of that period, that significant market bottom.
Here is a view of the same market bottom showing the two month lead into it.
Here is the 2000-2002 bear market shown with an SP 500 chart, from the second high in September 2000 which the SP made after the initial 2000 decline
Here is the list of the biggest intraday swings in the DJIA which we received from Barry Ritholz.
For reference, here is the decline in the SP 500 from the recent market top in October 2007
