S&P 500 · March 12, 2001

A Monday in the spring the bubble emptied

-4.32%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The dot-com bust hits the S&P 500

midway through · 2000-03-24 → 2002-10-09, -49.15% over the whole period

What happened that day?

The S&P 500 fell 4.32% to close at 1,180.16. No single trigger for the day could be pinned down
The market was in a 20.62% slide from its November 2000 high to the April 2001 low
The root of it was that technology share prices had drifted far away from actual profits
Through the spring of 2001 companies cut their earnings guidance one after another. Each was small; stacked up they change the direction
In stretches like this, large moves need no particular news. The reasons to sell are already inside the market
The bottom of the episode came three weeks later, on 4 April

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.