The craziest days ever at the New York Stock Exchange were last week from October 6th to 10th. And perhaps this shouldn’t have been a surprise: October is historically the worst month for the market.

It was October when the crash of 1929 took place and the market got devastated by a collapse in share prices. It was in October when the crash of 1987 occurred and the Dow Jones Industrial Average — the main index of the stock exchange — plummeted 22.6 percent in a single day.

And it was October this year when the same index had its most volatile day ever, swinging 1018 points. It went from a fall of 697 points in the morning to a gain of 322 points in the afternoon, though it closed with a loss of 128 points, to the relief of investors (in other times a fall of more than 100 points would have been considered worrisome).

This massive fluctuation was on Friday last week, the craziest day of the craziest week. That morning the atmosphere of the New York Stock Exchange was strange. In the pre-market hours, from 8 to 9:30 a.m, people were running with their hand helds, talking on the phone, concentrating as if they were risking their lives with each movement. The market seemed more buoyant than on the regular trading hours.

And then the run began at 9:30 a.m. with the opening bell. The Dow started a sharp decline and in ten minutes it was down more than 678 points — the total loss of the previous day. Then, on the ten minutes that followed, it started going up, and up, and up. Looking at the numbers in the big blackboard, traders began cheering as if they were spectators in a football game. They applauded and screamed as the Dow was rallying waiting for it to cross to the positive field. And when it did, there was a moment of joy on the floor of the stock exchange hardly ever seen, with an array of journalists from all over the world going on-air and traders even more busy.

Then the backward movement again. The ups and downs followed in the afternoon where you could listen conversations like this: “I bought it at $80, now it’s $50″; “I’m buying cheap stocks now”; “This is too crazy!”

Everyone had his or her own opinion on the events of the session, but the word “panic” came many times to mind that day. Some said it was the worst ever. Others added that things would get better from that scary moment. Maybe, but we’re still in October.

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