S&P 500 · September 3, 2020
Five stocks pulled the whole index down
-3.51%
single-day change vs previous close
What happened that day?
- On 3 September 2020 the S&P 500 fell 3.51%
- The index had closed at a record the day before, having recovered from the March low in half a year
- Much of that gain sat in a handful of the largest companies. An index weighted by size feels those names more
- When those few fell together, the whole index went with them. The rest of the market held up comparatively well
- The immediate cause was the unwinding of option positions built up around big tech
- The absence of any bad news made it more unsettling, not less — it suggested the rise had come from flows rather than earnings
- From the peak the index was down 9.6% and recovered by year end
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.