WhyItDropped

Nasdaq · January 5, 2001

Two days after the surprise cut

-6.20%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Nine months down without a rest

midway through · 2000-07-17 → 2001-04-04, -61.66% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • The Nasdaq fell 6.2% on the day
  • When the Fed cut at an unscheduled meeting on 3 January, the Nasdaq rose more than fourteen percent in one session, its largest gain ever
  • Much of that was given back within two days
  • The jobs data that day was weak and a large technology company lowered its forecast
  • A surprise cut cuts both ways — it signals help, and it signals that things are bad enough to need it
  • From this period the market repeatedly welcomed a cut and then worried about why it had been made

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.