Nasdaq · April 16, 2002

A bounce in earnings week

+3.59%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Nine months when the books could not be trusted

midway through · 2002-01-04 → 2002-10-09, -45.90% over the whole period

What happened that day?

16 April 2002 — the Nasdaq rose 3.59% to close at 1,816.79. No single cause can be pinned to the day
It was a heavy week for first-quarter results, and the early reports from large manufacturers and consumer names came in better than expected
In 2002 the market was watching whether the numbers could be trusted at all. Accounting frauds were surfacing one after another
So a clean set of figures produced an outsized reaction. This day had that character
Orders in the technology sector had still not returned. The hole left by cancelled capital spending was simply there
The bounce did not end the episode. The index slid further into the summer and bottomed in early August
From the early-January high to the early-August low the index fell 41.44%

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 put together from the public record; where a specific source was consulted it is listed above.