S&P 500 · April 14, 1988
One bad day in a recovering year
-4.36%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Back from Black Monday
early in it · 1987-12-04 → 1989-07-26, +50.97% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- The S&P 500 fell 4.36% to close at 259.75. No single trigger for the day could be pinned down
- 1988 was the year of recovery from the October crash. The whole of this pullback was only 7.64%
- A big day in a recovery is not the same animal as a big day in a collapse. Nothing is breaking; the fear simply has not worn off
- What the market watched closely then was the American trade deficit and interest rates. One data release could move the dollar, bonds and shares together
- A market only six months past a crash reacts harder to the same news
- The pullback ended in late May, and the index finished the year higher
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.