With the 20-city composite index falling below its April 2009 low, 12 of the cities surveyed for the index marked new index lows in the current housing cycle.

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Investors have already marked down stock index futures and the dollar index has rebounded by 0.3% to stand at 74.11 after a poor start to the week.

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The gain marked the best daily performance for the index in almost a month.

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In fact, since the beginning of August it has begun a marked descent, as the U.S. dollar index shows.

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Those pages are scanned far less frequently than those in the main index, meaning that once a page is marked for Google Hell, it can languish there for as long as a year before Google even deigns it worthy of a reappraisal.

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Today marked the eleventh worst day this year for the blue chip index and its largest fall in nearly two months.

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While the index closed above 20 twice last week, those finishes marked the only such closes for the VIX during the past 22 trading days.

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