WhyItDropped

S&P 500 · December 24, 2018

The bottom made on Christmas Eve

-2.71%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Q4 2018 selloff

near the end of it · 2018-09-20 → 2018-12-24, -19.78% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • The S&P 500 fell 2.71% on the day — the bottom of this decline
  • The US president was publicly criticising the Fed chair, adding worry about the central bank's independence
  • Part of the federal government was shut down at the same time over the budget
  • It was the thin session before a holiday, so small selling moved prices a lot. The market was open for half a day
  • December alone took more than nine percent off the S&P 500, the worst December since the Depression
  • From here the Fed said it would be patient and the direction reversed. The cause had been rates, so removing the cause brought the price back

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.