Nasdaq · April 21, 2020

Oil drags the tech index down too

-3.48%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Nasdaq's COVID rebound

midway through · 2020-03-23 → 2020-06-08, +44.66% over the whole period

What happened that day?

21 April 2020 — the Nasdaq fell 3.48%, more than the broad market that day
The trigger was the night before: the May contract for US crude printed a negative price for the first time ever
The Nasdaq holds almost no oil companies. It fell harder anyway, because the oil price was being read as a reading on the economy
If demand is that absent, advertising and device replacement go with it. Technology revenue sits on the same demand
Quarterly results from the largest technology companies were due that week, which gave another reason to step back
The low of this episode was already behind, on 23 March, and the index took the fall back the next session
From the 19 February high to the 23 March low the index fell 30.12%

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.