Last Thursday, after a couple of weeks of steady but relatively normal declines, the Dow suddenly tanked 500 points. Then, after a modest recovery on Friday, it fell 600 points — then it soared 400 points. Then it plunged 500 points — then it blasted off to another 400 point gain.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the rest of the major stock indexes just had one of the steepest one day declines since the May 6, 2010 “Flash Crash” occurred.

The Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy popularized by Michael O’Higgins, in 1991 which proposes that an investor annually select for investment the ten Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks whose dividend is the highest fraction of their price.

The Roaring Twenties, the decade that led up to the Crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Despite caution of the dangers of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Shortly before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”

The unemployment numbers are in, and it’s looking ugly out there. Payrolls grew by 69,000 last month, which remains a gain, but is the weakest showing in a year. Not only that, but April was revised down. In response, markets are plummeting.