Is now the time to buy low?

While the debate is on whether stocks are at a bottom, there might be a silver lining to the current financial crisis. Wednesday marked the 12th time the Dow & S&P have both been down by more than 7% over the same 3-day period. Whenever that's happened in the past, it's usually been followed by major increases--even a month later.

Take a look at the tables below and see how stocks have fared after big selloffs like the one this week.

Dow :
- Up on avg 6.48% 1 month later
- Up on avg 8.17% 3 months later
- Up on avg 10.72% 6 months later
- Up on avg 15.32% 1 year later
- Worst 3 day period on 10/19/1987, Down -27.93%, up 22.92% 1 year later

S&P :
- Up on avg 6.86% 1 month later
- Up on avg 9.45% 3 months later
- Up on avg 11.55% 6 months later
- Up on avg 15.05% 1 year later
- Worst 3 day period on 10/19/1987 , Down -26.27%, up 23.07% 1 year later

Nasdaq Composite :
- Up on avg 3.39% 1 month later
- Up on avg 10.88% 3 months later
- Up on avg 15.66% 6 months later
- Up on avg 19.08% 1 year later
- Worst 3 day period on 10/20/1987 , Down -22.42%, up 18.48% 1 year later

Leading the Dow today are American Express , Bank of America , JP Morgan Chase , GM and Citigroup

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