S&P 500 · August 23, 2011
A bounce after the downgrade shock
+3.43%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The downgrade and Europe's second wave
near the end of it · 2011-04-29 → 2011-10-03, -19.39% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 23 August 2011 the S&P 500 rose 3.43%
- The index had fallen hard since the US downgrade in early August
- Expectations spread that the Fed would act again soon. In September it did, changing the maturity mix of its holdings
- US home sales data that day also came in better than expected
- The market swung hard between European headlines and Fed expectations
- No single trigger can be pinned to this day
- In this stretch the index was 19.39% below its peak
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.