# Rare Day

SquawkFlow's Rare Day card for the 2026-10-16 S&P 500 session, from Cboe daily index closes: The VIX rose 3.53 points while the S&P 500 fell 1.09%. Only 8 other sessions since 1990 had a VIX rise of 3.53 points or more on an S&P 500 drop of 1.09% or less.

URL: https://squawkflow.com/rare-day
Session: 2026-10-16
Published: 2026-10-17T15:58:09+00:00
Next card: the Oct 19 session, after 6:30 a.m. PT (9:30 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, Oct 20, 2026.
Source: Cboe daily index history (S&P 500, VIX, VIX9D, VIX3M, SKEW, VVIX), https://www.cboe.com/tradable_products/vix/vix_historical_data/

## VIX rise on a small S&P 500 drop

The VIX rose 3.53 points while the S&P 500 fell 1.09%. Only 8 other sessions since 1990 had a VIX rise of 3.53 points or more on an S&P 500 drop of 1.09% or less.

Calibration: on 0.93% of earlier sessions, this stat's reading was this rare or rarer.

8 matching sessions, 8 after de-clustering (one per 20 trading days, earliest kept). Small sample.

### What the S&P 500 did after

| Horizon | After the matches | Any session | Compared |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 week later | higher in 7 of 8; median +1.91%, worst -1.66%, best +5.94% | higher in 58% of 9,259 sessions since 1990; median +0.33% | about the same as any session |
| 1 month later | higher in 8 of 8; median +2.99%, worst +0.64%, best +16.96% | higher in 64% of 9,243 sessions since 1990; median +1.24% | about the same as any session |

### Every match

| Session | Counted | S&P 500 1 week later | 1 month later | Context |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1991-01-14 | yes | +5.94% | +16.96% |  |
| 1998-09-03 | yes | +2.73% | +0.64% |  |
| 2001-10-12 | yes | -1.66% | +2.44% | Stocks fell about 2% midday after an anthrax case in an NBC employee ([Dawn (Reuters)](https://www.dawn.com/news/1155)) |
| 2016-06-13 | yes | +0.20% | +3.53% | Dow fell 133 points as UK polls leaned Leave before Brexit vote ([Investing.com](https://investing.com/news/stock-market-news/u.s.-stocks-fall,-as-vix-hits-3-month-high-amid-increased-brexit-fears-408118)) |
| 2020-07-13 | yes | +3.06% | +5.66% |  |
| 2020-12-21 | yes | +0.87% | +3.97% | UK coronavirus strain weighed on stocks; lawmakers' agreement on a $900B relief deal ([Schaeffer's Investment Research](https://www.schaeffersresearch.com/content/ezines/2020/12/21/dow-sneaks-in-slight-gain-as-stimulus-takes-spotlight)) |
| 2021-08-18 | yes | +2.18% | +0.74% | Fed minutes showed a 2021 bond purchase taper was possible; Dow fell 383 points ([UPI](https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/08/18/Dow-falls-382-points-as-Fed-minutes-show-plans-to-ramp-down-bond-purchases/2371629317011/)) |
| 2025-10-16 | yes | +1.65% | +1.58% | Zions and Western Alliance disclosed fraud-tied loan losses; bank shares slid ([Bloomberg Law](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/zions-western-alliance-disclose-bad-loans-tied-to-alleged-fraud)) |

## Method

A stat counts N earlier sessions that matched or beat this session on every part of it; the sentence keeps that raw count. Separately, calibration is the share of earlier sessions on which the stat's own reading was this rare or rarer; a card shows when that share is 1% or less. What followed is the S&P 500 close-to-close change after each match, beside the same numbers for every session in the stat's history. Matches within 20 trading days of a kept match count once; fewer than 10 remaining is marked small sample. Context labels appear only where a named source supports them.

Not a forecast. These are counts of past sessions and what the S&P 500 did after them; past sessions say nothing certain about the next one, and nothing here is advice.