S&P 500 · March 24, 2003

The day the war stopped looking short

-3.52%

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 fell 3.52% to close at 864.23. No single trigger for the day could be pinned down
It was the fourth day of the Iraq war. The market had risen hard the week before, ahead of the invasion
If the rise rested on the assumption of a short war, then prices give it back when that assumption wobbles
Over the weekend came reports that the campaign was not going as smoothly as expected
In stretches like this it is the assumption, not any single headline, that sets the price. So the daily range widens
The preceding pullback was 14.71%, and its low had passed earlier, on 11 March
Despite this day, the larger direction was up. The rise that began here ran for years

Sources

S&P 500

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.