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 NEW YORK (AP) - Investors know October is the stock market's scariest month. But this October finds them even jumpier than usual. The magnitude of the year's calamities — the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake and Hurricane Katrina — has prompted some to prepare for disasters of almost every stripe.
"How might another influenza pandemic affect the market?" Banc of America strategist Thomas McManus wrote to clients this past week.
The declines in the first half of the month haven't made anyone calmer. The Dow Jones industrial average has fallen 281.36 points, or 2.66 percent so far. Percentage declines in the Nasdaq composite and the Standard & Poor's 500 are even steeper: The Nasdaq has lost 4.03 percent and the S&P, 3.44 percent.
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