S&P 500 · September 29, 2008

The day the rescue bill was voted down

-8.81%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Global Financial Crisis bear market

near the end of it · 2007-10-09 → 2009-03-09, -56.78% over the whole period

What happened that day?

The S&P 500 fell 8.81% on the day
The US House of Representatives voted down a seven-hundred-billion-dollar financial rescue bill. Passage had been expected, so the shock was large
The index plunged intraday as the result came through. More market value vanished that day than the bill was worth
Opposition to the rescue was strong — the objection that taxpayers were saving those at fault, which is not wrong in itself
But when the financial system stops, those not at fault are hurt more. That tension is the central problem of crisis response
The bill passed four days later in amended form, and the index still fell for four more 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.