S&P 500 · July 8, 1974
The summer inflation and politics both went bad
-3.07%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The 1973–74 oil shock bear market
near the end of it · 1973-01-11 → 1974-10-03, -48.20% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- 8 July 1974 — the S&P 500 fell 3.07%. No single cause for that one day could be pinned down
- American inflation was running in double digits that year. When prices jump, the same earnings get priced lower
- A political crisis heading for the president's resignation was running alongside. He left office a month later
- The slide that began with the Middle East oil embargo in late 1973 was still going
- From the March high to the 3 October low the index fell 37.56%
- The bear market ended that December. From January the following year it moved fast the other way
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.