S&P 500 · January 9, 1974
Fourth day down in the oil winter
-2.81%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The 1973–74 oil shock bear market
midway through · 1973-01-11 → 1974-10-03, -48.20% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- January 9, 1974 — the S&P 500 fell 2.81% to 93.42. No single cause for the day could be pinned down
- The oil embargo that began the previous autumn was still in place: queues at the pumps, talk of rationing
- It was the fourth straight decline, wiping out the gain from the year's first session
- The close was the lowest since December 24, 1973
- Prices were rising while output fell — every dollar more for fuel was a dollar less for everything else
- It was the fourth largest one-day fall of the year
- From October 12, 1973 to April 25, 1974 the episode ran -19.62%. The real bottom came that autumn
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.