When Was The Last Time The S&P Index Moved 1%? 29 Days Ago And Counting

The S&P 500 index was trading lower by just 0.12 percent Monday afternoon. Should the market stay relatively calm and quiet, the index will end the trading session within 1 percent of where it started in the morning for the thirtieth straight day.

According to The Irrelevant Investor, the lack of volatility in the market may be puzzling to some. After all, 2016 is a presidential election year and the Volatility Index is lower than 93 percent of all days dating back all the way to 1990.

"It's hard to see volatility going anywhere but up," the site's author Michael Batnick, Director of Research at Ritholtz Wealth Management, wrote.

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Batnick noted that the average stock market return in a presidential year is 11.2 percent, more than 2 percentage points below the median of 13.5 percent. Dating back to 1926, stocks decline in just four election years — ironically years of market turbulence, including the Great Depression era of 1932 and 1940, the Dot.com Bubble of 2000 and the Financial Crisis of 2008.

"With stocks near all-time highs, you're probably sitting on some gains," Batnick added. "And if you're comfortable paying taxes because of a hunch, you probably don't have a great plan for getting back in. That's because you'd be letting your emotions drive decisions."

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