Wikimedia CommonsTuesday is another ugly day on Wall Street.
And here's another "since 2008" stat that stock bulls won't like.
According to the folks at Bespoke Investment Group, the S&P 500 is currently on pace to lose more than 3% on the first three trading days of a year for only the third time ever.
The other two years? 2000 and 2008, the years of the last two massive stock market crashes.
And in an afternoon email, the NYSE's Rich Barry noted that with the S&P's losses at more than 3.2% as of 1:30 pm, the benchmark index was on pace for its worst three-day start to a year ever.
Barry, as ardent a bull as we know of, noted that since 2000, the S&P 500 has fallen during the month of January eight times, though stocks managed to finish the year higher five out of the last six of those instances, including in 2014.
Last week, we highlighted another "since 2008" factoid from Jonathan Krinsky at MKM Partners, who noted that while 2014-15 marked the first time since 2007-08 that stocks ended one year with a down day and started the next year with another losing session, that has happened 10 times since 1980 and come ahead of winning years 7 of those times.
No matter how you cut it, a volatile start to the year, though it appears there is something both bulls and bears can point to and say that in 2015, they're going to be right.
Near 2:20 pm ET, the Dow was down more than 180 points, the S&P 500 was back below 2,000, and the Nasdaq was down 1.4%.
Oil was still crashing, with West Texas Intermediate crude cracking $48 and Brent crude closing in on $50 a barrel.
On Monday, the S&P 500 recorded its fourth-straight losing session, breaking a 264-session streak without four-straight losing sessions, the longest such streak in 87 years.