S&P 500 · May 27, 2010
China said it was not selling euros
+3.29%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Europe's crisis and the flash crash
midway through · 2010-04-23 → 2010-07-02, -15.99% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 27 May 2010 the S&P 500 rose 3.29%
- The day before, a report that China was reviewing its European bond holdings had knocked the market down
- That day China's foreign exchange authority denied it and said it would keep holding euro assets
- China holds the world's largest reserves. If it sold, the euro would break — that calculation shook the market
- The market fell on one report and rose on one denial. News was all there was to price against
- No single trigger can be pinned to this day
- In this stretch the index was 15.99% 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.