In a way, October 2018 has felt like October 19, 1987, but in super slow motion. Here's the headline from the following day. Explanations sound familiar: "analysts scrambled for explanations, which ranged from rising interest rates...to the possibility of war..." 
It’s interesting what is still considered defensive. Low-growth businesses like Hershey, Nestle, Walmart and P&G are up in October.
Here's a comparison of P/E multiples (straight from Bloomberg) before and after the Black Monday crash in Oct 1987 (-20.5%) and this year's slow-mo crash (-21.0%). Back then, interest rates were sky high and P/E implied strong growth; today it's the opposite, with fear baked in
