WhyItDropped

Nasdaq · December 24, 2018

The Christmas Eve bottom

-2.21%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Q4 2018 selloff on the Nasdaq

near the end of it · 2018-08-29 → 2018-12-24, -23.64% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • The Nasdaq fell 2.21% on the day — the bottom of this decline
  • It was a half-day session with little trading. With few participants, small selling moves prices a lot
  • The Nasdaq was down close to a quarter from its August high that year
  • The cause was rates, not earnings. The Fed had raised four times that year and said it would keep going
  • The US-China trade fight and a government shutdown landed on top
  • Ten days later the Fed said it would be patient, the direction reversed, and it went on to cut three times in the second half of the next year

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.