Wall Street recovers, dives as volatility continues

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK

After posting major losses in the last two trading days and opening lower Tuesday, major indexes on Wall Street recovered and climbed to positive territory, for a short while.

The Dow and S&P each fell about 1 percent at the first bell before quickly clawing back those losses. At one point the Dow added 600 points.

But those gains were wiped out, again, as volatility continued with the index moving more than 100 points into negative territory.

In the past two trading sessions, the Dow lost 7 percent, the S&P fell 6.1 percent and the Nasdaq declined 5.7 percent in what experts called it "a correction in the bull market" and said a pullback from record highs set last month was understandable.

"When you have a number of days like this -- losing 7 percent in two days -- that is a correction," Mark Kepner, managing director at the Themis Trading brokerage firm told Anadolu Agency.

Steve Goldman, who heads the Goldman Management trading firm, said "the market had the sentiment where everybody was so bullish. It's not understandable not to have a pullback."

The VIX, which measures market volatility expectation in the S&P 500, jumped 124 percent Monday to as high as 38.80 -- its highest level since August 2015.

The index, however, was down 38.4 percent to 22.97 at 10.10 EST (1510GMT), indicating fears that volatility in the market is subdued.