Nasdaq · January 17, 2003
Selling ahead of a long weekend
-3.34%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Four months of waiting for a war
midway through · 2002-11-27 → 2003-03-11, -14.55% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- January 17, 2003 — the Nasdaq fell 3.34% to 1,376.19. No single cause for the day could be pinned down
- The report from the Iraq weapons inspectors was due. When the war would start was already in the price
- Guidance from large tech companies that same week had come in short of hopes
- It was the third straight decline — and with three days off ahead, many chose not to hold
- The next session was not Monday but Tuesday, January 21
- The close was below the last session of 2002, erasing the whole first fortnight of the year
- A week later, on January 24, it fell nearly as much again. From November 27 to March 11 the episode ran -14.55%
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.