NEW YORK, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Worry over a 10 percent slump in stock markets, officially known as a correction, are percolating on Wall Street, after a hard slide in January.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 3.7 percent in the first month of the year, but there are other signs markets are headed for a fall, including the fact that historically markets do not maintain a bullish stance indefinitely, USA Today reported Monday.
On average, corrections of 10 percent or more have occurred every 322 days since 1928, Ned Davis Research said. It has been slightly longer than, 326 days, since the markets hit their low last year on March 9.
In Beijing, the People Bank of China has given signals it intends to slow economic growth, which weighs on stocks. In the United States, President Barack Obama's comments on austerity measures or charging banks to make up for bailout losses also have a negative impact on stocks, the newspaper said.
The downward trend might be "a reality check," said David Rosenberg, chief strategist at Gluskin Sheff. Or it could be "a minor correction in riskier assets so far," said market analyst Tim Anderson at Riverfront Investment Group.
