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I think that's just you noticing smaller blips in the market as you pay more attention. Markets are random walks so they exhibit a fairly fixed distribution of different sized crashes. If they deviated, someone could notice that pattern and trade on it, returning the market back to a random walk.

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> Markets are random walks so they exhibit a fairly fixed distribution of different sized crashes.

Market prices being unpredictable random walks doesn't mean that the volatility or shape needs to be constant. To make the notation more precise, you need to talk about (sub-) martingales.

> If they deviated, someone could notice that pattern and trade on it, returning the market back to a random walk.

This is true, but "fairly fixed distribution of different sized crashes." doesn't follow at all.

Or it could be a sign of a greater amount of financial intervention to preserve the value of the stock market after crashes, particularly since most people are largely counting on their 401k/IRAs to maintain their value in their retirement years

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