It’s time to stop in, tighten those cleats, and get ready for what’s coming next. With October right around the corner, this has traditionally been the most volatile month for stocks, across all of history.

You may assume that October is just the stand out because of the 1987 crash that saw the Dow fall more than 22% but the year only really can account for a very tiny part of the October Surprise volatility. In fact, when it comes to months of the year, October ranks as the most volatile even WITHOUT accounting for the 1987 melt down.

That means that data has been compiled over 100 years of information on the markets and there is a large change in the historical records. So there isn’t a real guarantee that Wall Street in October this year will see above average volatility but there’s a good chance based on history. Keeping this in mind, you may want to at least be prepared.

But the question arises, “How do I prepare?” In this case, one of the top ways to not panic if or when the volatility spike happens is to simply…not….panic. The average performance of stocks isn’t any worse than average when ranked against the Dow’s performance since the benchmark was made in the 1800’s. Also, since Y2K, October is third in line when it comes to monthly performance overall.

Now you also have to remember that many more bull markets have actually begun in October than bull markets that have ended during the month. This has helped give the title to October of the month of “The Bear Killer”.

And though you can’t avoid volatility entirely, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing and investors should be ready for it. The additional fact that October has seen a blow average number of bear markets getting started should be a good sign for the bulls to be ready to fire away, and fast during the month.