As mentioned in my recent January charts on the move video, based upon looking at hundreds of thousands of charts, markets that decline double digits most often retest their bottom after the initial rally off that bottom. I thought the historical data below would be worth providing to support my observations. From the 12 prior 20% drops from a unique all-time SP500 high, you can see that 11 of the 12 retested prior lows from the initial oversold rally. In the bottom row I have included the current decline based upon Friday’s close for comparison purposes.
While the sample size is not huge it covers every drop that met this criterion since (and including) the Great Depress and help makes the case of why you should seriously consider being patient before buying the first bounce once exceeding the 20% decline.