Quietest Days of Stock Indexes by David Merkel, CFA of the Aleph Blog.
There was one time when I was writing for RealMoney when none of the three main indexes (S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX), Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI), NASDAQ Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC)) moved much on a given day, and so posted on it to show how rare it was. One fellow e-mailed me be saying, “You have too much time on your hands.”
Maybe so, but on 6/10/2014, it was even more quiet. It was the 11th most quiescent day for the indexes since the NASDAQ Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) was created in February 1971. Here’s a list of quietest days:
| Date | Least Volatile | Nasdaq | S&P500 | DJIA |
| 11/12/2012 | 1 | -0.021% | 0.013% | -0.002% |
| 12/27/1977 | 2 | 0.019% | 0.000% | -0.020% |
| 8/20/2012 | 3 | -0.012% | -0.002% | -0.027% |
| 6/14/1989 | 4 | -0.022% | -0.025% | -0.004% |
| 12/2/2011 | 5 | 0.028% | -0.024% | -0.005% |
| 8/26/2009 | 6 | 0.010% | 0.012% | 0.044% |
| 10/11/2010 | 7 | 0.017% | 0.015% | 0.035% |
| 3/16/1993 | 8 | 0.037% | -0.013% | 0.016% |
| 5/31/1979 | 9 | 0.023% | -0.030% | 0.021% |
| 11/2/1984 | 10 | 0.000% | -0.042% | -0.035% |
| 6/10/2014 | 11 | 0.041% | -0.025% | 0.017% |
There’s no rhyme or reason to this list. Quiet days are unique, and as far as this list goes, are a once in four years occurrence. Still, it’s fun to think about quiet days, and wonder why we have trading at all. We may as well have had a vacation day.
