S&P 500 · December 16, 2008
Rates reach zero
+5.14%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The Global Financial Crisis bear market
near the end of it · 2007-10-09 → 2009-03-09, -56.78% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 16 December 2008 the S&P 500 rose 5.14% in a single day
- That day the Fed cut its policy rate effectively to zero — the first time in US history
- It also said it would buy Treasuries and mortgage bonds if needed, the approach later called quantitative easing
- Once rates cannot go lower a central bank looks out of tools. This showed that it was not
- That combination became the basic frame of US monetary policy for years afterwards
- The index's low, though, came three months later on 9 March 2009
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.