S&P 500 · October 24, 2018

Good earnings, and down anyway

-3.09%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Q4 2018 selloff

midway through · 2018-09-20 → 2018-12-24, -19.78% over the whole period

What happened that day?

24 October 2018 — the S&P 500 fell 3.09%
Third-quarter earnings that year were broadly good. It fell anyway because the market was looking ahead
The Fed had raised rates several times that year and said it would keep going. The US-China trade fight was escalating at the same time
This is also when chipmakers began cutting their guidance for the next quarter. Good earnings describe the quarter just ended
The Nasdaq fell more the same day — a difference in how much tech each index carries
From the late-September high to the 24 December low the index fell 19.78%
The decline ended when the Fed said it would change course

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.