Is October 19th Cursed?

There are still 12 days to Halloween, but October 19th is quickly shaping up to be the spookiest day of the year for investors.  Today is the 25th anniversary of the 1987 crash and the Dow is down nearly 200 points.

Looking at historical performance on the 19th though, there's not anything extra-ordinary to worry about.  It's just a day like any other, albeit one that does average slightly negative returns.  On average, the Dow has been down 0.5% on all October 19th's since 1900.  If you exclude 1987 that figure is -0.2%.  However, of the 80 October 19th's on which the Dow has been open, the index has been positive on 39 of the days or about 50% of the time.