Nasdaq · August 13, 1982
The Volcker recession on the Nasdaq
-28.79%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
306 trading days · 1981-05-29 → 1982-08-13
back to the old high on 1982-11-04
What happened that day?
- From the May 1981 peak to the August 1982 low the Nasdaq fell 28.79% — 306 trading days
- This was the stretch where the Fed held rates at unprecedented levels to break inflation
- At those rates borrowing to grow a business does not work, and the Nasdaq was full of small growing companies
- The recession deepened, unemployment climbed sharply, and corporate failures followed
- In August 1982 inflation clearly broke, the Fed began cutting, and the direction changed
- The old high returned on 4 November 1982 — under three months from the low
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.