Nasdaq · February 9, 1999
Stocks nobody could price
-3.91%
single-day change vs previous close
What happened that day?
- On 9 February 1999 the Nasdaq fell 3.91%
- Many internet companies then had no profit. Some had barely any revenue
- So there was nothing to price them against. With no earnings to multiply, people used things like visitor counts instead
- When there is no yardstick, the price is set by mood — and mood changes overnight
- No single trigger can be pinned to this day. In a market like that, big moves without a cause are ordinary
- From the peak the index was down 10.41%, and it took two days to come back
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.