Some Sense a Second Invisible Hand

Fair to say, Tuesday was the nuttiest 82-point day in history. The Dow Jones Industrial Average's relatively modest decline (relative to the past few weeks) followed another session of wild swings amid heavy volume. Moreover, it was accompanied by even wilder rumors and dramatic movements in foreign exchange and commodity markets.

The Dow traded as high as 7894.41 early in Tuesday's session and as low as 7682.89 at about 2 p.m. EDT. The index flip-flopped between up modestly and down modestly at least 10 times during the session and suffered yet another steep drop in the final hour of trading, ending down 1.1% to 7702.34.

Broader market averages sustained less volatility but suffered bigger declines. The S&P 500 closed down 2.7% to 797.71, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 4.2% to 1229.05. Additionally, the Russell 2000 shed 4.1% to 363.99. ...