WhyItDropped

S&P 500 · January 2, 2009

The first session of 2009

+3.16%

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?

  • On 2 January 2009 the S&P 500 rose 3.16% on the first session of the year
  • 2008 had taken more than thirty-eight percent off the index — the worst year since 1931
  • New-year rebalancing money arrives and buys whatever fell most
  • There were also expectations that the incoming administration would announce a large stimulus
  • The bottom was not in, though. The index fell further, until 9 March
  • No single trigger can be pinned to this day
  • In this stretch the index was 46.64% 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.