Nasdaq · March 5, 2009

The day the auditors said they weren't sure GM would survive

-4.00%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

A halving that took seventeen months

near the end of it · 2007-10-31 → 2009-03-09, -55.63% over the whole period

What happened that day?

5 March 2009 — the Nasdaq fell 4.00%, its lowest close since March 2003
That day, America's largest carmaker received an audit opinion citing substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern
Auditors use that phrase only when bankruptcy looks likely. The company filed three months later
The same day, one large bank's shares dropped below a dollar for the first time ever. Bank stocks broke down across the board
Below a dollar, many institutions are not allowed to hold a stock at all. That is how a decline feeds itself
Four sessions later, on 9 March, was the bottom. Nobody knew that for a long while
From the November 2008 high to the March 2009 low the index fell 24.56%

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.