Nasdaq · February 20, 2001
The day the word recession appeared
-4.41%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Nine months down without a rest
near the end of it · 2000-07-17 → 2001-04-04, -61.66% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- The Nasdaq fell 4.41% on the day
- Profit warnings continued through February and the sense spread that this was not only a technology problem
- There was no single trigger. Consumer confidence was weakening and manufacturing surveys kept falling
- The US economy did enter an official recession the following month, in March. The market had read it a few weeks early
- The Fed had cut twice by now with no visible effect. That companies would not buy even at lower rates was the problem of this period
- The index fell further into early April, losing more than two thirds from the March 2000 high
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.