S&P 500 · January 3, 2001
The surprise cut on the S&P 500
+5.01%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The dot-com bust hits the S&P 500
early in it · 2000-03-24 → 2002-10-09, -49.15% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 3 January 2001 the S&P 500 rose 5.01% in a single day
- The Fed cut rates on a day with no scheduled meeting
- An unscheduled cut normally signals urgency, but the market read it as the Fed stepping in to defend growth
- It was nine months into the dot-com bust and manufacturing data was deteriorating fast
- The S&P 500 rose less than the Nasdaq, having less tech and therefore less sensitivity to rates
- The Fed cut eleven times that year and still could not prevent the recession
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.