Nasdaq · July 2, 2010
Two months of Greece and a flash crash
-17.33%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
49 trading days · 2010-04-23 → 2010-07-02
still below that peak today
What happened that day?
- From the high on 23 April 2010 to the low on 2 July, the Nasdaq fell 17.33% over 49 trading days
- It became clear that Greece might not repay its debt. A country defaulting is a different kind of problem from a banking crisis
- Countries using the euro cannot print their own money, so they had few tools of their own. That is what made the trouble drag on
- On 6 May US shares plunged and recovered within minutes. Automated orders had pushed each other down, and trading-halt rules were rewritten afterwards
- The event lasted minutes but what it left lasted longer. After seeing the market empty out in seconds, individual investors withdrew
- The correction was over in two months, but Europe's problem ran on for years after it
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.