S&P 500 · March 30, 2009
Conditions for the carmakers
-3.48%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Eighty percent in a year off the bottom
early in it · 2009-03-09 → 2010-04-23, +79.93% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 30 March 2009 the S&P 500 fell 3.48%
- The US government demanded hard restructuring from two large carmakers, with bankruptcy as the alternative
- The index had risen sharply for three weeks off the 9 March bottom, so there was plenty to give back
- The market had risen on the premise that the government would rescue anything. Conditions were now attached to that premise
- Both companies went through bankruptcy that year and were rebuilt with government support
- In this stretch the index was 27.62% below its peak
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.