S&P 500 · October 6, 1982

Rates turned, and the bull market started

+3.27%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The 1982 Volcker pivot rally

midway through · 1982-08-12 → 1982-11-03, +39.49% over the whole period

What happened that day?

6 October 1982 — the S&P 500 rose 3.27%. No single cause for that one day could be pinned down
That week was a run of consecutive up-days, with the advance that began in August accelerating
For several years before it, the Fed had held rates at extreme levels to break inflation, accepting a recession to do it
From the summer of 1982 inflation turned and room to cut appeared. For stocks that was everything
Lower rates put a higher price on the same earnings. Profits need not grow for the price to rise
The advance that started here ran to October 1987 — one of the long bull markets in American equities
This was not a declining episode, so no peak-to-trough figure applies

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.