Nasdaq · March 11, 2003
Four months of waiting for a war
-14.55%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
69 trading days · 2002-11-27 → 2003-03-11
still below that peak today
What happened that day?
- From the high on 27 November 2002 to the low on 11 March 2003, the Nasdaq fell 14.55% over 69 trading days
- What undid the autumn bounce was not fresh bad news but waiting. Nobody knew whether war would come, or how long it would run
- Oil mattered more than the war itself. Fear of supply being cut in the Middle East lifted the price, and dearer oil means higher costs for firms and less spending by households
- Companies waited too. Capital spending and hiring were postponed, and orders for technology products fell with them
- The low on 11 March came eight days before the invasion. The market had already fallen before anything happened
- The shape repeats often — the deepest falls come while things are uncertain, and are given back once the event arrives
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.