Nikkei 225 · April 2, 2008

The spring the worst looked past

+4.21%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The bounce before the storm

early in it · 2008-03-17 → 2008-06-06, +22.92% over the whole period

What happened that day?

The Nikkei 225 rose 4.21% on the day
In March a US investment bank on the brink had been sold cheaply to another, in a deal the Fed made possible by providing funding
The market read it as a signal that the worst had passed, since it confirmed the authorities would not simply let a large financial firm fail
17 March had been the bottom of this phase, and the rebound from there ran to June
The judgement was wrong. That September a larger investment bank did fail, and this time there was no rescue
It shows how long a rebound in the middle of a crisis can keep people fooled

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.