WhyItDropped

Nasdaq · August 11, 2010

The day after the Fed wrote that things had weakened

-3.01%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Ten months the second round of QE bought

early in it · 2010-07-02 → 2011-04-29, +37.37% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • The Nasdaq fell 3.01% on the day — the second-worst single session of this rally
  • The evening before, the Fed had said the recovery had slowed and that it would put the proceeds from bonds it already held back into buying more
  • That is an easing move, yet stocks fell — because it was read as **evidence that things were bad enough to require it**
  • China's production figures and the US trade deficit both came in poorly the same day
  • Through the summer of 2010 the market was ruled by the fear that the recovery would roll back over into recession
  • That fear lifted that autumn when the Fed signalled large-scale bond buying. This stretch ran to the following April

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.