S&P 500 · March 18, 2008

The week an investment bank was rescued

+4.24%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Global Financial Crisis bear market

early in it · 2007-10-09 → 2009-03-09, -56.78% over the whole period

What happened that day?

On 18 March 2008 the S&P 500 rose 4.24%
Over the previous weekend a large US investment bank had been bought by another just before failing, with the central bank supplying the money
The Fed also cut rates sharply that day
The market read it as the worst being over — as proof the government would rescue the big ones
That reading proved wrong six months later, when another investment bank was allowed to fail in September
In this stretch the index was 19.86% below its peak
It was later argued that the rescue precedent made the next crisis worse

Sources

Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is written from the sources listed above.