S&P 500 · August 20, 1982
The month the grip on rates loosened
+3.54%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The 1982 Volcker pivot rally
early in it · 1982-08-12 → 1982-11-03, +39.49% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- The S&P 500 rose 3.54% on the day
- The Fed cut the rate it lends to banks at several times that month — the first reversal of a squeeze it had run for more than two years to break inflation
- The cost of that squeeze had been heavy: unemployment near double digits and a deep recession
- But inflation genuinely broke. Having achieved the aim, the Fed judged it could let go
- This point is recorded as the start of the longest bull market in US history. The index climbed from here for eighteen years
- Taking this stretch alone, it ran three months
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.