Anyone trying to make sense out of the day-to-day swings in US stocks this year has to look back seven decades for a precedent. The earlier performance ought to hearten those anticipating a rally later this year.

Yesterday marked the 62nd day of trading this year on US stock exchanges — and the 32nd time that the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose or dropped more than one percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The last full year with more frequent moves of this magnitude was 1938, when 57 percent of daily changes in the index's value exceeded the threshold, S&P calculations show. This year's figure works out to 52 percent. Look at what happened 70 years ago on a quarter-by-quarter basis, and the results may justify buying stocks. For one thing, the proliferation of one-percent-plus swings wasn't a one-quarter phenomenon. First-, second- and third-quarter readings all were above 60 percent of trading days, based on Bloomberg's data.

For another, losses of this size outnumbered gains only in the first quarter, when they came out ahead by a three-to-two margin. The three-month period also was the only one that year in which the S&P 500 fell.

The 19-percent loss for the quarter was made up and then some in the next three months, when one percent-plus rallies beat comparable declines by about a four-to-three count. The S&P 500 soared 36 percent. During the third quarter, winners were comfortably ahead by about five-to-four and the index added 5.9 percent.

Put this together with the year's final quarter, in which stocks climbed as volatility lessened, and the S&P 500 racked up a 25-percent gain. That was almost identical to the index's best annual performance of the past decade: a 26-percent increase in 2003, the first full year of the latest US bull market.

The 3.6 percent jump in the S&P 500 yesterday is a step toward a similar turnaround. As first-quarter earnings reports arrive during the next few weeks, it will become easier to see whether 2008 looks like 1938 revisited.

Calling National City Corp.'s pursuit of "strategic alternatives," corporate-speak for the potential sale of the bank or some other deal, a day late and a dollar short qualifies as an understatement.

More than two weeks have elapsed since JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the largest prospective suitors, effectively took itself out of the running by agreeing to acquire Bear Stearns Cos. instead. During that period, National City's shares have fallen 24 percent.

The resulting $2 billion decline in market value has made a bad situation even worse for National City's shareholders. Their dividend cheques shrank when the Cleveland-based bank, seeking to save about $127 million a year, reduced its quarterly payout to 21 cents a share from 41 cents in January.

Along with these numbers, there are the mounting losses on sub-prime mortgages that the company kept after selling its First Franklin home-loan unit to Merrill Lynch & Co. in December 2006. Time and money aren't on National City's side.

Calpers' annual targeting of US companies whose governance and financial performance need improving has done little to help the fund's beneficiaries lately. Short sellers, on the other hand, would have a field day with its picks.

All five companies on the California Public Employees Retirement System's focus list for 2008 — Cheesecake Factory Inc., Hilb Rogal & Hobbs Co., Invacare Corp., La-Z-Boy Inc. and Standard-Pacific Corp. — have declined since the release date, March 25. The S&P 500 has risen 1.3 percent. Last year's line-up, published on March 15, 2007, consisted of 11 companies. Nine of them posted bigger stock-market losses in the next 12 months than the S&P 500, which fell 7.5 percent. Sanmina-SCI Corp., a contract manufacturer of computers and mobile phones, took the biggest hit by tumbling 60 percent.

Tribune Co., the newspaper owner bought by Sam Zell, was one of the exceptions. The other was EMC Corp., the data-storage computer maker buoyed by a successful initial public offering of its VMWare Inc. software unit in August.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, which published the Harry Potter books in the UK, had far less to fall back on after the series ended last year than Scholastic Inc., its US counterpart.

Even so, Bloomsbury is off to a better start in the post-Potter era. Here's how the London-based company started out its earnings release yesterday: "2007 was an exceptionally strong year for the company and this momentum has continued into the first quarter of 2008."

Scholastic wasn't so effusive last week in reporting fiscal third-quarter results, and with good reason. The company, based in New York, recorded a wider loss even before writing down the value of a direct-sales unit. Scholastic also cut revenue and profit forecasts for the full year, ending in May.

The publishers' contrasting fortunes are evident in their stock performance. Bloomsbury has risen 43 percent since November 23, when the shares reached an eight-year low. Scholastic, which reached $40 a share on October 30 for only the second time since 2002, has dropped 22 percent since then.

(David Wilson is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)