NEW YORK –- The one-day record slide in the NYSE may have hit many investors in the gut, but yesterday’s rout in U.S. stocks may be good news after all as an index that measures expected market swings rose to a record, opined some experts.

Bloomberg.com quoted the chief investment officer of global equities at BlackRock Inc. as saying, "Non-volatile, docile markets are really hard. You like to buy things down and sell things up. If you don’t get a volatile market, you don’t get that swing.”

Another expert offered that yesterday’s stock market drop "creates a great opportunity. We can now sift through the wreckage and see what we have.”

The Chicago Board Options Exchange’s SPX Volatility Index (VIX) jumped 64 percent yesterday, Bloomberg.com reported, the most ever, to 18.31 as U.S. stocks had their biggest one-day decline in four years.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which fell 3.3 percent yesterday, hadn’t lost at least 2 percent since May 2003.

In addition, the S&P 500 yesterday gave up its February gain after rising for a ninth straight month.

All this happened coincidently at a time when results of a survey published this week showed enthusiasm for stocks may be declining. The UBS/Gallup Index of Investor Optimism dropped to 90 in February from 103 in January, the biggest decline in 10 months.

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