Nasdaq · December 20, 2001
Doubting the recovery at year-end
-3.25%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The three and a half months after the attacks
near the end of it · 2001-09-21 → 2002-01-04, +44.70% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- December 20, 2001 — the Nasdaq fell 3.25% to 1,918.54. No single cause for the day could be pinned down
- It came after almost three months of climbing off the September low, and the doubt was simply that the climb had been too fast
- A large energy company had just collapsed, opening the question of whether corporate books could be trusted at all
- The data was still bad. There was no sign yet of chip orders coming back
- It was the second straight decline and the lowest close since December 3
- From December 6 to February 21 the episode ran -16.45%
- The hope that returned in January broke again in the spring
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.