Perspective

Friday the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 390 points, today it is down about 300 points. In September 1929, on the record high prior to the "Black Tuesday" crash of October 29th, 1929 that heralded the Great Depression, total volume was 386 points. But while a 390 point drop is greater than the total volume of trade on any given day in 1929, it is only about 4% of the total volume of the market today. The drop in 1929 was in the neighbourhood of 60% on Black Tuesday, bottoming out at 10% of the 1929 peak volume by 1932. That would be the contemporary equivalent of a 5,500 point drop followed by a slow sinking to a total volume of about 900 points.

It's a shame they apparently don't teach math and history anymore. Things would be much less panicked on Wall Street.