S&P 500 · February 11, 1991
When the war started to look short
+2.57%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The Gulf War relief rally
near the end of it · 1990-10-11 → 1991-02-13, +24.90% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- The S&P 500 rose 2.57% on the day — the second-largest single gain of this recovery
- **No single cause for that day has been pinned down.** What is established is that it came near the end of a four-month recovery
- The air campaign that began a month earlier had gone more one-sidedly than expected, and oil had fallen back below its pre-invasion level
- On top of that the Fed was cutting rates steadily against the recession. Less war risk and falling rates at the same time
- What people had feared in the summer of 1990 was a scenario in which the oil spike lasted. That scenario had been erased
- Across the stretch as a whole the climb ran four months
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.