S&P 500 · September 3, 2002

Back down to test the summer low

-4.15%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The dot-com bust hits the S&P 500

near the end of it · 2000-03-24 → 2002-10-09, -49.15% over the whole period

What happened that day?

The S&P 500 fell 4.15% to close at 878.02. No single trigger for the day could be pinned down
It was the first session back after the summer break. Volume returned and the pent-up direction came out at once
2002 was the year accounting frauds at large companies kept surfacing. Whether financial statements could be believed hung over the whole market
On top of that came data showing the recovery was slower than hoped
The episode ran 29.81% down from the May high to the October low, and this day sits in its final stretch
The bottom came about a month later, on 9 October, and a multi-year rise began there

Sources

S&P 500

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.