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So how bad was October? One for the history books

By Laura Mandaro & Nick Godt, MarketWatch
Last update: 1:30 p.m. EDT Oct. 31, 2008SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch)

Anyone who stomached 900-point swings on the Dow Jones Industrial Averge this month got quite a taste of the volatility that marked October trading -- by almost all accounts one of the worst months in stock market history.
But not only U.S. stocks distanced themselves with past records. Emerging markets, currencies, commodities and bonds all made their way into the history books for having turned in mostly negative performances.

Here are the highlights. Or should we say, lowlights?

1. October has traditionally been a bad month for stocks. Still, the Dow industrials 15% drop over the last four weeks is the biggest October decline since 1987, when the Black Monday crash sent the blue-chip benchmark down 23% for the month. This month it fell 20 out of 22 trading sessions. During an eight-day losing streak at the beginning of the month, it racked up a total drop of fully 2,396 points.

2. Massive daily moves in both directions sent traders reaching for the Mylanta. The S&P 500 has not had such a volatile month since November 1929, as measured by moves of at least 1% higher or lower. The Dow posted its two biggest point gains on record, climbing by 936 points on Oct. 13 and by 889 on Oct. 28. But it also posted its second-biggest point drop on record, of 733 points.

3. Shares of Germany's Volkswagen set a new standard for huge price moves among non-penny stocks. The automaker's shares surged 250% on Monday and climbed further on Tuesday, giving it a brief run as the largest company in the world by market capitalization, after investors scrambled to cover their short investments.

4. Panic that the world was heading into recession carved trillions in value from global stock markets, from Milan to Mumbai. Standard & Poor's global indexes lost $6.79 trillion all told, the most on record -- and easily topping September's $3.4 trillion.

5. The sell-off in commodities accelerated, pushing prices further from all-time highs reached earlier this year. Crude-oil futures tumbled about 35% during October, marking the biggest monthly percentage drop since trading began in 1983. And at the retail level, consumers could finally say they paid less at the pump than a year ago: Average retail prices fell 31% by the end of the month to $2.504 a gallon, or 14% lower than the same time last year, says AAA.

6. The dollar gets a lot of credit for the nosedives in energy and other commodities. The greenback gained an astonishing 14.3% against the euro from the close of September to the dollar's peak a few days ago. Those healthy gains, however, pale next to its advances of 22.3% against the Canadian dollar and 31.8% against the Australian dollar.

7. Any hope that fast-growing emerging markets could weather recession in the developed world evaporated as losses wiped out roughly $900 billion in wealth from the 25 major emerging markets. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index was on track for a 30% fall, the worst monthly loss since August 1998, when Russia's debt default helped send the index down a similar amount. During the month, spreads on emerging-market bonds shot past 8 percentage points over Treasurys to a six-year closing high.

8. Regional indexes showed some whopping losses. Japan's Nikkei 225 hit a 26-year closing low in the last week of trading. Tiny Iceland's exchange tumbled 81% for the month. Argentina's Merval and Brazil's Bovespa indexes looked to make their biggest one-month percentage losses since August 1998, with the Merval down 40% and the Bovespa losing 26%.

9. A rush to safe assets sent bond yields tumbling and prices rising. Yields on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond hit their lowest level ever, 3.935%, on Oct. 6. And risk perception for corporate junk bonds hit the highest seen in five years on Oct. 28, according to S&P.

10. Inflation plays got shunted. Gold futures fell 16%, the biggest monthly percentage loss since 1983. Spreads on inflation-indexed bonds withered, with long-term inflation expectations falling to their lowest levels in at least five years.

Kate Gibson, Nick Godt, Deborah Levine, Carla Mozee, Myra Picache, Lisa Twaronite and Moming Zhou contributed to this report.

Laura Mandaro is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.
Nick Godt is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York.