As I have said many times in the past, regular people should not be afeared about investing in the markets, but don’t even think that you have the potential to invest wisely in the stock market, except through buying and holding.  While Billions of Dollars were made yesterday between 3PM and 4PM, how many regular people knew it was time to buy in to end the 300 point drop and create the rush to erase that entire loss.  The people who control the market with their million dollar buys at any instant made the money and all us regular people stood by and watched the market tumble and rise.  We can’t understand why the market went down or why it went back up.  The competing analyses indicate that there is no answer.  It is just the volitility of the market because so many players are on vacation that the players in town make moves and create rises and falls.  So the smartest of them made tremendous money in that one hour yesterday and a few of the not so smart guys lost some money yesterday.  But for those of us who just buy and hold, yesterday was a wash. 
So do not fear the market, just don’t think any of us regular guys can make the killing that the big guys did.