'Triple Witching Hour' May Spur A Stock Market Rally This Friday
Investors reeling from last week's record stock market plunge will barely be able to catch their breath before Friday's "triple witching hour."</br></br>The witching hour -- market parlance for the simultaneous expiration, once a quarter, of stock-index options and futures and individual stock options -- often results in violent swings in stock prices.</br></br>But several Wall Street strategists predict that some of the same factors knocking the market for a loss last week -- the sophisticated trading strategies employed by arbitragers -- are likely to fuel a market rally this Friday.</br></br>Analysts are split as to what the market will do leading up to Friday. But on Friday, barring negative news on interest rates or other market-moving developments, "there's a strong likelihood we'll see an up day," says Gerald Walsh, stock-index analyst with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc., New York.</br></br>The market continued its pattern of explosive volatility last Friday, taking yet another tumble. The Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded 34.17 points to 1758.72 on record volume of 240.5 million shares. That broke Thursday's volume record of 237.6 million shares, when the index plunged a record 86.61 points.