Nasdaq · October 15, 2008
The give-back after the rescue
-8.47%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
A halving that took seventeen months
near the end of it · 2007-10-31 → 2009-03-09, -55.63% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 15 October 2008 the Nasdaq fell 8.47% in a single day
- Two days earlier, on 13 October, it had risen double digits on the coordinated bank rescue
- Retail sales figures released this day came in badly weak and the mood flipped back
- Saving the banks does not help if people stop spending — the problem had moved from finance into the real economy
- The Fed chair saying recovery would take time added to the selling
- A double-digit gain and this fall inside two days. That kind of whipsaw is itself the signal that the market has no direction
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.