S&P 500 · March 17, 2003
The day the ultimatum came
+3.54%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The 2002–07 recovery
early in it · 2002-10-09 → 2007-05-30, +97.00% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- The S&P 500 rose 3.54% to close at 862.79
- The American president gave Iraq's leadership two days to leave the country — in effect, notice that war would start
- Prices rose on the eve of a war for one reason. What had weighed on the market for months was not the war but not knowing when or how it would begin
- Once there is a date, companies and investors can do the arithmetic. Removing the uncertainty is enough to lift prices
- The low of this episode had passed the week before — the end of a 14.71% pullback that bottomed on 11 March
- The war began three days later, and the index kept rising
- The climb was not a straight line. Seven days on, it fell hard again
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.