Altcoins prices push the price of bitcoin up and down !!
if Altcoin is a simulation of bitcoin's path, so why not just bitcoin enough ??
Any altcoin owns its name, project and ideas, so why that altcoins are related in the pricing with bitcoin ??
Altcoins exist to diversify and provide new features to the original Bitcoin core, there are different blockchains for differing option, be they medical, game assets, public records and many more.
There is always volatility, whether this is in the BTC and ALT markets, oil, gas, gold and even wheat, It's a prospectors and traders world we are all in now.