October suprise coming? There may be proof. Look at Oct put options.

[FloridaPat]

They are higher than normal. At least compared to Nov and Dec. This was reported on Whatreallyhappened.com. The article is here but the links don't work because you need an account to see them. However, you can get option chains anywhere. The put is a bet that the stocks are going down. Calls are bets that the market is going up. Usually they are fairly even unless bad or good news is expected. DIA is an option for the Dow market. QQQQ is option for Nasdaq. This is what happened to United and American Airline stocks in the Sept 2001 market. October is historically a bad month. But so far nothing on the radar to suggest a big drop. Everyone on TV is expecting a lot more upside in the markets.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=QQQQ
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=DIA

DIA

Calls Puts
114 8956 21402
115 12773 42876
116 11409 15265
117 10795 7693





http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=22476

A faithful reader and commentator, "A. Magnus" writes has written the following email, posted to FMNN General Feedback:

"Do you like October suprises? Is there a big bang coming to hit the markets? If you believe that those in the know use insider information before major events then you might be interested on the HUGE number of October 6th put options for the big indexes. Check out the concentrated puts on the Diamonds DOW Trust (DIA):

https://fastquote.fidelity.com/webxpress/ia_optionchain_frameset.phtml?priced=Y&SID_VALUE_ID=DIA

Ditto for the S&P Depository Receipts (SPY):

https://fastquote.fidelity.com/webxpress/ia_optionchain_frameset.phtml?priced=Y&SID_VALUE_ID=SPY

And the NASDAQ (QQQQ):
https://fastquote.fidelity.com/webxpress/ia_optionchain_frameset.phtml?priced=Y&SID_VALUE_ID=QQQQ

Even the Market Vectors Gold Miners has significant puts for October 6th:

https://fastquote.fidelity.com/webxpress/ia_optionchain_frameset.phtml?priced=Y&SID_VALUE_ID=GDX

Make no mistake - something wicked this way comes, and the smart money has already taken preventative steps."

[katsy]

1. reminds me of the puts right before 911. nt

[aquart]

3. Okay, what is a "put"? I refuse to pretend I know.

My mind jumps to putz and putsch and I know that's not right.

[FloridaPat]

6. Calls and puts are games stock market players get to play.

It's a way to get a lot of money for little investment or a way to loose a lot of money quickly. Calls are bet a stock or index will go up within a certain time period. Puts are bets the stocks or index will go down within a certain period. The period we are currently discussing is October. The option for Oct end on Oct 20th. So you buy a put option betting the Dow or Nasdaq will drop before that time. If it's not at the point by Oct 20, you loose your money. There are a lot of options bought by people betting the markets will go down big in the next 3 weeks.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. Put is the right to sell a security at a predetermined price

before a predetermined day (expiration). So, the An Oct SPX 1250 Put option gives the right to sell the SPX for 1250 on the third friday of October (Most options not on indices have this right anytime before expiration, but indices often allow exercise only at expiration.) So, if the SP500 is at 1400, this is worthless, since selling at 1400 would be more desirable than the 1250....but if the SP500 drops to 1150 or something, then you can sell for 1250 that which is worth 1150!

A call option is the opposite, but you get the right to buy and hope things go up a lot so you can lock in your cheap price.

[aquart]

21. So puts mean a gamble that the market will crash?

I don't have the intestinal fortitude for this sort of thing.

[Lucky Luciano]

22. Depends on what you use it for

It could be that you want to insure a portfolio against a down move. Derivatives, which options are (their value being derived from the underlying security), exist for the purposes of hedging first and foremost...of course their existence also is of interest to speculators - that have significant amounts of intensinal fortitude. The real players that know how to trade live by my sig line...and one can get edges legally, albeit with a lot of work...a lot of statistical modeling and blah blah blah....

[readmoreoften]

35. In other words, yes. A put is a bet that a stock will drop in a given...

period.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

48. I have the fortitude, but not the money to risk

This is an area where being wealthy is a huge advantage.

If someone with a net worth of $25 million can invest $10,000 and possibly get $10 million in return, they do it.

If someone with a net worth of $20,000 looks at the same opportunity, they can't afford the risk.

[Lucky Luciano]

69. whoa there!

You are talking a 1000-bagger. Usually a 10-bagger is about as good as you can expect if you just buy the options outright. Large institutions don't usually buy them outright. They often trade the volatility through a concept known as delta hedging...long story. They trade in enormous sizes and the good traders eke out an average of a nickel per contract - meaning $5 since there are 100 shares in a contract...thing is that they may trade a few million contracts per year! It is a very picked over business, so it is all about taking large sizes and wringing the towel dry while keeping your risk level very low - that is what the delta hedge helps to achieve - the offsetting positions do protect the trader - who should come up with some other tricks as well to keep risk low and PnL (profit and loss) up.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

73. Thanks for the real world example - the concept is the same

I was strictly talking concept. I gather you actually work with this stuff.

In any case, if I can invest $10,000 and have a 35% chance of making $100,000, I do it if I've got ten grand I can afford to lose. That's the rub for the working stiff. We don't usually have an extra $10K laying around.

Folks in the BushCo tax bracket look at $10K the way I look at $100. It's an easy call for them to risk it and get $100K, especially if the game is rigged and they kinow when the market is scheduled to move.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. What are some of the companies

that are seeing spikes?

[FloridaPat]

8. So far someone has just notice the big markets themselves - Dow and

Nasdaq. Not a word about companys. They did list gold, but I couldn't see a spike either way on that index. If you will remember 9-11 the markets collasped royally.

[Renew Deal]

16. Watch for Gold pushers.

They are everywhere and I don't understand why. Gold has a fanatical following.

[phantom power]

63. Because they know that the current economy is untenable.

Metals like gold and silver have been the de-facto currency standard for most of the last 5000 years. If our current equity-based economy crashes, they will be again. The frequency of gold "pushers" is directly related to how many people feel uneasy about the current economy.

I feel pretty uneasy these days. How about you?
:evilgrin:

[Imagevision]

4. Considering Defense biz alone with power-change, Stock market should

expect changes due to the change in spending. Sounds realistic.

[C_U_L8R]

5. the big bang is...

the sound of Democrats thoroughly trouncing the Republicans
and booting em out of town.

Dear repuke lurkers... hope your CVs are in order...
Word is McDonalds needs more fry-o-lator operators.
Do ya think you can handle it without fucking things up again????

[SammyWinstonJack]

9. !

:spray:

[lonestarnot]

55. Teehee!

:rofl:

[bananas]

10. Quick! We need one more vote to get on the greatest page

before the thread gets moved to the dungeon...

[Lucky Luciano]

11. There could be a lot of reasons for this

1) The market is up a lot lately.
2) Consumers are in a bind because their houses are no longer ATMs.
3) Well, yea...the whole real estate thingy I mentioned above deserves its own mention.
4) Even though oil is down ya never know what the fuck can happen.

All of these factors can contribute to potential volatility in the future and that will increase the price of all options - not just put options. If put options are increasing in value, then call options must also be increasing in value or the Put-Call Parity arbitrage would come into play. I could not access your links, but I assume that you were also looking at open interest in puts vs calls.

I would be more impressed if there were a big change in volatility skew - ie the implied vols of the far out of the money puts increased significantly more than the at the money options. That would be interesting and would indicate that there is trouble ahead.

[FloridaPat]

12. The puts outnumber the calls by 3:1.on the Dow & about 2.5: on Nasdaq.

Yes, there could be a lot of reasons. But after 9-11 and talk about an Oct suprise, one has to wonder.

[Lucky Luciano]

14. Missed your chart

Calls Puts
114 8956 21402
115 12773 42876
116 11409 15265
117 10795 7693

This does not indicate much to me as far as insider aware of October surprises at all. I would look more for the strikes around 107-110 since well out of the money puts can make a lot more returns in the event of a big down move than near the money options.

Let us also recall that options play the role of insurance and help to hedge risks that investors have taken on. Uncertainty about an election may be a risk that people want to hedge with some put options - especially in light of the runup lately.

A bit skeptical of your assertions for sure and hope you are wrong!!! :)

[FloridaPat]

17. I hope I'm wrong too. I put the links to the lists because it was too

hard to copy everything over.

[Marie26]

13. Volatility skew

I have no idea what this means, but this is the volitility strike skew for the Naqdaq 100 Trust. Does this seem meaningful at all?

http://www.optionstoolbox.com/f/volatility_skew

[FloridaPat]

15. I only heard about that once and never got into it. But yes it doesq

mean something. Looks like puts are getting volitile. Price of options factor in the volitility of the stock. The more volitile, the higher the option. Neat chart. Thanks

[Lucky Luciano]

19. Did not see much out of the oridnary there

I actually clicked on the Oct option button once I got to your optiontoolbox page. You will see that the vols of the deep in the money calls and deep out of the money puts (the left side of the graph) are high relative to the other options - except for the way out of the money call on the far right side.

This is typical behavior. Before the 1987 crash, vols were pretty close to uniform across all strike and expirations, but after the crash many were so completely creamed if they were short teeny put options in large size (teeny put = way out of the money). I mean they got absolutely slaughtered. Ever since then, crash risk has been priced into out of the money puts and they trade with higher vols than other options. By put-call parity, the calls of the same strikes as these puts (which must tehrefore be way in the money) must also trade with higher vols - they need not be equal vols due to the bid-ask spread, but arbitrages should be prevented by the transaction costs of the bid-ask spread.

[suziedemocrat]

24. this is more complicated than quantum physics!

I wish I understood even a little bit of what you're talking about. And I did well in my 300 level economics class in college and I watch CNBC regularly. Still, I'm beyond lost. Wish I knew a little of what you know! Is all that knowledge making you money?

[Lucky Luciano]

26. Funny you say that...

I do a very quantitative style of options trading (I also trade something called a Credit Default Swap, but that is another story). The stuff I have said in this thread is very basic....to learn more, you would need to learn about how the Black-Scholes theory works pretty intimately. My favorite website once past the basics for this is over at http://www.nuclearphynance.com

For the basics, just google Black-Scholes.

Of course, the phy spelling does refer to the great number of math and physics PhDs that do this sort of thing for big banks or hedge funds.

[suziedemocrat]

47. OMFG - that theory is so complex!

I looked up Black–Scholes on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Scholes)

That doesn't look basic to me. I was going to try to put my head around it, but forget it!

[FloridaPat]

29. Made a ton back in the 90's. Lost it too. Took a year to understand

options.

[Marie26]

40. lol, I'll take your word for it. nt

[optionstoolbox]

25. Volatility skew

Volatility skew shows the relative expense of option contracts on the same option chain. Sound complicated? Not really.

If a stock is trading at $40, and the $40 CALL cost more than the $40 PUT, then either the price of CALLS is being driven up by buying, or the price of PUTS is being driven down by selling. Both are bullish, and strong indicators of an upward price swing.

Take a look at the following chart on XM Satellite Radio:

http://www.optionstoolbox.com/f/volatility_skew?symbol=XMSR&date=20060929

$15 calls are much more expensive than $15 puts, with good volume. Calls are being Purchased, not Sold. Stock is likely to go UP.

[Lucky Luciano]

31. careful there - compare implied vols - not prices.

At the money calls always cost more than at the money puts...That put-call parity thing again. Basically the formula for put-call parity is:

C - P = S - K*exp(-(r-D)*T) - this relationship is pretty easy to prove if you make an attempt - it does assume you can only exercise an option at maturity and never before though. Either way, a relationship like this will be very close to working for most options when early exercise is allowed if the underlying has very low dividends. Long-ish story. I could say why as it is not sooooo advanced, but I have probably said way more than people care to know!

where,
C=call price
P=put price
S = stock price (or whatever underlying you use)
K = strike price
exp = e to the..
r=risk free interest rate - usually short term LIBOR in practice, but the short term T-Bill rate in books.
D = dividends yield
T = time to expiration.

For at the money S=K obviously, so C - P = S-S*exp(-(r-D)*T) > 0, so C > P.
I am ssuming the dividend yield is less than the risk free rate - almost always the case.
QED

Incidentally, P/C parity is model independent and has nothing to do with Black Scholes.

[optionstoolbox]

36. careful there - compare implied vols - not prices.

Yes, true, calls are more expensive than puts, particularly as expirations go further out. The difference is typically slight for near term expirations.

The disparity in volatility on the XMSR chart cannot solely be attributed to carry cost and there is no dividend. So the skew is bias in favor of calls on this one.

The skew measures volatilities, not prices. But higher ivols mean "more expensive" options, not necessarily options with higher cost. I am simply trying to explain this without formulas or going into depth on Black-Scholes, etc. Your posts are excellent and accurate.

The skew chart is looking for disparities in option prices that do not fit the expected skew, to gain insight on market activity, market sentiment, and probable direction.

Rich

[Lucky Luciano]

54. XMSR

That chart says the 15 call has a vol of 266% and the 15 Put is about 55%!

That is a massssssssive arbitrage opportunity. If this really existed I would sell calls like a wildman and buy the puts - in fact the disparity is so enormous that I would probably just sell the calls outright in massive size - like 50,000 times if I could get the liquidity!

Trouble is the fact that it is bad data.

I just checked my Bloomberg and the put vols compared to the call vols are within 1-2% of each other for all expiries - the bid ask spread will prevent an arb.

[newyawker99]

52. Hi optionstoolbox!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[alfredo]

33. The Saudis were talking about cutting production.

[aquart]

38. If Bush bombs Iran, the oil market will panic again.

No matter what the Saudis do, the price will climb. Which wouldn't help the Republicans one bit.

But it would crash the market for a minute.

What else would do that? China calling in its markers?

[A HERETIC I AM]

44. The markets won't "Panic" if Iran gets attacked.

The news is already "in the market" ie; the potential for such a thing is already accounted for. Would it drive the price of oil up? To be sure but it wont be a panic.

BTW What do you mean by "China calling in its markers"?

If you are referring to the amount of US Treasury securities they might hold, they can not "Call them in"
Treasury Bonds are just that - Bonds. A Bond holder can not simply call it in or demand payment prior to maturity. He may be able to sell it on the open market but he can not force the issuer to pay before maturity.

This is apparently a common misconception regarding US Treasury debt securities. The biggest concern is that the various countries and institutions would stop buying new issues. If that happened THEN we would have a problem.

US Government Debt securities are seen as having almost no risk because of the virtually unlimited taxing power of the United States Congress.

[aquart]

67. The market WILL panic if Iran gets attacked.

Sorry, but no matter the rational planning, the market will simply freak. Not even because of the attack, but because it means that there is no check whatsoever on Bush's irrational behavior. And that means nothing is certain.

And if oil prices do NOT rise with such an attack in the region......dear me. That would be stunning proof of manipulation.

I defer to you on the bonds, but China has other means to exert control. Because they haven't cracked the whip, doesn't mean they won't.

The "virtually unlimited taxing power of the United States Congress" is worth what with a crashed dollar? Besides, they're refusing to tax, preferring to up the debt. Is the debt also limitless?

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Well, you know they have to come up with something soon because this

Foley thing is gettin hot, hot, hot!

[girl gone mad]

20. If I were a gambler, I'd be betting against Bush's economy, too.

The current run up is not justified by any fundamentals. I think a major recession is inevitable at this point.

[Eurobabe]

34. PRECISELY

I get some good newsletters, Daily Pfennig, which watches currencies and commodities, and John Mauldin Outside the Box. Our money manager suggested some puts last month, on anything connected/affected with the housing market.

This market stinks as bad as the Internet Bubble with a dollop of Housing Bubble on top

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

74. I wish I didn't agree with you

But I do.

[NMDemDist2]

23. I just posted this over in the Economy forum. interesting indeed n/t

[bananas]

27. You should provide a link when you do that

so the rest of us can follow the other thread.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x22439

[Rosco T.]

28. anyway to find WHAT stocks are being shorted?

[FloridaPat]

30. Somewhere there is a list. I don't think I've ever seen it though.

The folks on MSNBC quote shorts for specific stocks a lot.

[Lucky Luciano]

32. here

http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/asp/short_interest.asp

google "short interest" for any info you want about this.

[McCamy Taylor]

37. Then again, everyone assumes that Rove will create a Terra crisis.

So, yeah, betting the market as if there will be an October Surprise that is bad for the economy seems like a no brainer.

But let's step back a second. We know that Rove would like to do a nice simple Terra crisis, since that is how the RNC playbook works. But the NIE documents have thrown a monkey wrench in any plan that calls for a Terra threat, especially one from Al Qaeda since this will now precipitate public cries of "If only W. had not lied and taken us into Iraq, then Al Qaeada would not have gotten stronger and we would not be in danger." For instance, for months some people have been nurtuting internet rumors that Al Qaeda would smuggle suitcase bombs and dirty bombs from Mexico to the US during Ramadan. Intercepting or pretending to intercept one of these in Oct. would have been a great political move for the administration. They could have claimed that the parts were from some secret stash of Sadaam's that Al Qaeda found in Iraq ("Look Ma, there were WMDs!") Or, they could say Iran gave it to them. Or both. A week or two ago, someone claiming to be Al Qaeda even seemed to be laying the ground work for this "crisis" by issuing a call for muslim nuclear scientists and biologic and other weapons experts to come to Iraq to aid the cause. This would be good news for the RNC----except for those pesky NIE documents that the Dems and the press wont let America forget about.
If a nuclear weapon goes off in some American city like LA (close to Mexico, lots of Dem voters) the blame will be laid squarely at W.'s door. If a plane is downed, it is Bush's fault. If Al Qaeda sneezes right now, W. is to blame

This leaves Iran for a Terra threat. Trouble is the US is not buying Iran as a Terra threat.

So, I would not count on an October surprise that will rock the stock market, except for some revelations after the election that the administration has been lying about economic indicators and that things are much worse than they seem now. They do that every election cycle.

[chill_wind]

39. My money is on Iran.

It's not as if Bush and Cheney haven't been telegraphng their punches.

Iran's already letting us know they're not liking the Bush sanctions and regime change bill Congress just passed. Things have just escalated greatly. And if the reports in Time and The Nation are to be believed, we may well have Naval vessels heading overseas way right now.

The End of Summer Diplomacy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2258585

Iran Freedom Support Bill (passed in the House last week, passed in the Senate Saturday)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2534654

[eridani]

41. Let's be careful here--

--the economy is going into the tank, and for that reason alone there could be lots of anomalous things going on. Always get second references from someplace besides WhatReally Happened, unless they are mirorring more reputable sites.

[mmonk]

42. It's been over a year since I bought a put on diamonds.

I of course, do it out of fear when I think something may happen. I haven't done anything this year so it will probably happen knowing my luck.

[Leopolds Ghost]

77. Wouldn't diamonds go up if something bad happened?

Or is there an inverse relationship between gold and diamonds?

[Lucky Luciano]

79. Diamonds refer to the trading of an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund)

on the Dow Jones Industrial average - the Diamond trade under the ticker DIA. Much like the SP500 ETF trade under the ticker SPY - and are naturally called....Spiders.

http://www.amex.com/?href=/etf/prodInf/EtPiOverview.jsp?Product_Symbol=DIA

Spiders trade at a value of 10% of their respectvie indices. Diamonds trade at 1% of the DJIA value.

[Philosoraptor]

43. heads up

karl wouldn't have put out that sinister warning about an october surprise for nothing.

I expect the worst from these fuckers.

[Buttercup McToots]

45. awt oh...

Let's keep our eyes on this...k?

[Auggie]

46. Sounds like it might be a good idea to park investments in money markets..

[Atman]

49. SEND THIS TO K.O.! This is one of the SAME WARNING SIGNS as 9.11

"Who could have imagined?!"

Fuck imagining...we have a pattern, experience. Is anyone looking into this? (Dumb question, I know.)

[mopinko]

62. i hope not

this is ridiculous. this poster has no idea what they are talking about.

[sofa king]

50. How's BioPort doing?

As other DUers and I noted elsewhere last week, BioPort is nearing completion of a factory in Frederick, MD designed to produce 100 million doses of anthrax vaccine. They also have plans to go public very soon.

The bad news is that BioPort didn't get the government contract to fill 100 million doses by 4th quarter, 2006. The vaccine they produce is considered by some to be obsolete and the FDA has mired them in red tape.

The good news is that BioPort features well connected players Fuad El-Hibri and Jerome "Jerry" Hauer as CEO and board member. El-Hibri used to manage accounts for both the Carlyle Group and the bin Laden Family. Hauer is the fellow who had diesel fuel tanks installed in WTC-7, got John O'Neill his job at WTC after he quit the FBI in disgust, and recommended Cipro for the Vice President's staff weeks before the anthrax letters were sent out.

I'm very bullish on BioPort this October.

[hpot]

51. Sears Tower

The same folks who took care of WTC "security" are also responsible for the Sears Tower. Does anyone have any background information on them?

[lonestarnot]

53. Yikes.

[lonestarnot]

56. Any updates, I can't log into any of those links?

[mopinko]

57. the options markets have been revolutionized

in the past 2 years. electronic trading has turned the industry upside down, in terms of volume, and in terms of flow/ups and downs. ie- there used to ba a big slow down in the summer, as people took vacations. now, they can tend their holding electronically, and trade from anywhere. volume this summer at cboe has been record setting. but it has nothing, repeat nothing to do with politics.
this is a very complex industry, and you do not know what you are talking about.

[lonestarnot]

58. They don't know what they are talking about?

I certainly don't know what they are talking about, but it sounded scary. :rofl:

[lonestarnot]

59. Are you saying that the markets don't have anything to do with

politics, or that this particular type of trading has nothing to do with politics?

[mopinko]

60. i'm saying

that politics in general have nothing to do with options in general. regulation of a particular industry might affect that industry, the election of a particular congressman connected to a particular industry, yes. politics in general, no. and an october surprise reflected in a broad trend in options? impossible.
those 911 puts were not only very specific, they were so out of the ordinary that they set off alarm bells.

i'm telling you, the industry has been revolutionized. i am married to the guy that developed cboedirect.

[lonestarnot]

61. gotcha.

[file83]

64. Whose "alarm bells" went off on those pre-9/11 puts?

I'd like to know who noticed it...because from what I remember, the organizations that did the puts were never exposed to the public before OR after 9/11.

Was there a financial article pre 9/11 that said something about it?

[mopinko]

65. the options exchange has very sophisticated

analysis to prevent gaming of markets. iirc, it was traced to deutchebank? i think, some european bank, and that is as far as the trail could be seen by the exchange. of course, our great leader could find out in 10 minutes i am sure.

[Lucky Luciano]

70. A good example of this:

My boss used to trade at Susquehanna Investment Group (SIG) and while there, one of the junior traders would always wait for his boss to go to the bathroom and then enter option orders for his personal Schwab account because he knew his boss had large orders coming for those options - this technique is known as frontrunning and is highly illegal. Well, he was really doing well with his little frontrunning strategy. In fact, it blew an alarm at Schwab who noticed that his option trades were 100% successful! Schwab investigated and he got busted - he is in jail now - all this and a ruined career over only $500K - dumb fuck! He would have easily made that much every year for the rest of his life if he just stuck it out a couple more years and behaved. Susquehanna never would have caught him - his broker did!

D'OH!

[mopinko]

71. lots of other goodies out there

complicated business, and lots of ways to cheat.

[Leopolds Ghost]

78. "this industry?"

I'm always fascinated by how many wealthy and powerful people apparently frequent DU. I'm comforted to know that when Dems are elected they will not have the sort of "ties to this or that industry" that your husband's colleagues definitely count on them having. Anyone who thinks that Repubs aren't financed by a certain crowd and Dems another is a fool. Just look at how thoroughly corrupted local urban machines are by the real estate industry.

[mopinko]

80. bwahahahah wealthy and powerful. bwahahahaha

my hubby is a geek. he gets a good paycheck, but it is just a paycheck. if it stopped coming, we would be toast. on a slower rate of burn than many here, but crispy none the less. don't get no checks for sittin around the pool that i do not have. i don't even have a cleaning lady.
it never ceases to amaze me how many here want an egalitarian world for everyone, except those who have a little more than them.
have a beer man. relax.

[leftchick]

66. kick

.

[Champion Jack]

68. KICKED

[chill_wind]

72. kick nt

[Champion Jack]

75. AM --------Kick

[One_Life_To_Give]

76. How compare to Oct. 2002, runup to midterm elections?

You probably want to see what the historic trend is for the runup to a federal election. IIRC the market gets a little squirrely until right around the election.