Nasdaq · January 4, 2008

The first jobs report that broke

-3.77%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

A halving that took seventeen months

early in it · 2007-10-31 → 2009-03-09, -55.63% over the whole period

What happened that day?

4 January 2008 — the Nasdaq fell 3.77%, in the first week of the year
That morning's US December payrolls showed almost no job growth and a jump in the unemployment rate
Until then, mortgage losses had been treated as a problem inside finance. Employment breaking meant it had crossed into the real economy
Employment is a lagging measure. By the time that number turns, it has usually been happening for a while
Two days earlier, oil had traded at three figures a barrel for the first time — the same week
The slide ran to mid-March. The Fed cut rates several times in between and prices kept falling
From the late-October 2007 high to the March 2008 low the index fell 24.13%

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.