S&P 500 · December 20, 2011

Three-year money for Europe's banks

+2.98%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

After 'whatever it takes'

early in it · 2011-10-03 → 2013-03-28, +42.75% over the whole period

What happened that day?

On 20 December 2011 the S&P 500 rose 2.98%
That week the European Central Bank began lending to banks for three years at a time
Until then the terms had been short, so banks had to keep repaying and re-borrowing. Three years removed that worry
Banks used the money to buy their own governments' bonds. Yields fell and the banks earned the spread
It did not solve the problem, but it bought time — and in that time came the July sentence of the following year
US housing starts the same day also came in well above forecast
In this stretch the index was 9.84% below its peak

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.