Stocks fell sharply lower in very volatile trading on Monday, while Treasurys strengthened amid a rush for safety. Gold was slightly lower, crude oil fell a whopping 6% and the S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) soared 45% in a sensational yardstick of the fear that gripped participants.

Light attendance on trading floors played a role, as there were not as many veteran traders around to act as cooler heads. The Dow Jones Industrials opened an astonishing 1,000 points lower as distressed investors put in orders to sell at Monday’s open at any price, and the market makers ran the stops of thousands of other participants. The Dow ultimately rose all the way back to just -130 points on the day before sinking back to nearly -600 at the close.

Most observers were putting the blame on China growth fears, which were magnified by eroding confidence in the political and financial leaders in Beijing. The only positive to come from any sort of leader were comments from Apple Inc. (AAPL) chief executive Tim Cook, who made upbeat comments about the business prospects in China.

All sectors were lower, led by a 5.2% loss in energy stocks and a 4.7% decline in financials.

So what does the history of markets tell us about what might come next? Bespoke Investment Group analysts looked yesterday at prior large gaps down for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). Their data extends to 1993, when SPY started trading. Since then, there have only been two previous gaps down larger than the one Monday morning. Historically, following those gaps, performance of SPY has been very positive over very short- and medium-term timeframes.

Below is a table of the previous top 10 gaps down. As shown, history was on the side of buying the Monday open, as the market has tended to be up over the next week or so from that initial print. Panicked reactions in liquidation-type moves are rarely a good time to actually sell. People who sold stocks on yesterday’s open bottom-ticked the market, and that is likely to be true for at least a week, if not much longer.

As shown by Bespoke’s table (below), there’s only been two times in which buying the open left you lower a month later; those gap downs were in the heart of the biggest financial crisis in modern history, 2008 and 2009. The present is nothing like those two times.

And finally, I just want you to note that the S&P 500 reached -10% for 2015 when the market opened Monday morning. That feels terrible because it has happened so rarely in the last few years. But observe that the year 1999 included four separate -10% declines en route to a 102% gain. This is not to say that the market is going to end the year up 100%, but I mention it just to provide some perspective on a period that was more volatile than the present — and ultimately left investors on higher ground.

My suspicion is that the market did sufficiently test the lows with Monday’s late-afternoon decline and cleared out a lot of weak hands both in the morning and in the afternoon. The spike lower at the end of the session was most likely structural, as funds of a new type that trades volatility in large scale were forced to sell stocks to maintain their required ratios. This should leave a vacuum for buyers to come into the market today.

The CounterPoint Options system agrees and thinks the market will rally after testing its -1,000 point Dow low in late Monday trading. As such, it’s recommending iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) puts.

Buy the VXX Sept. 18th $20 puts at around $1.50 for target $3.00. Set a stop at $0.85, good till canceled. The ticker symbol for the VXX puts is VXX150918P00020000, and this is the monthly option that expires on Sept. 18, 2015.

Jon Markman writes a daily trading newsletter, Trader’s Advantage, and CounterPoint Options, a service geared towards helping individual traders make steady, consistent profits with the VIX. Follow him on Twitter for his latest take on markets and innovation, and be sure to check out his Top Stock for 2015 here.