When stock market prices drop, most people don’t panic too much. It’s common for the price of stocks to vary from day to day, and most of them bounce back fairly quickly. Some of them only drop a little on any given day and rise significantly in the days to follow. However, when an unprecedented large drop occurs in the stock market, investors begin to panic. Read on to learn which stock market drops were the largest one day drops in history thus far.
October 9, 2008
What makes the fact that the stock market dropped 678.91 points this day so detrimental to investors is the fact that it was just one of many drops in a three months period of time. In fact, four of the five biggest one-day drops in stock market history occurred between September and December 1, 2008.
December 1, 2008
This was an admittedly bad year for the stock market. Many people lost a significant chunk of their retirement at this time, and this particular day was a bad one. The market dropped 679.95 points in one day. It was just one big drop in a string of large one-day drops that put investors on edge during this dismal timeframe.
September 17, 2001
Only six days following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the stock market faced a financial crisis. In just one day, the market dropped a record 684.81 points. The attacks shook the confidence of many in the nation, and investors began panicking and making poor investment decisions, which led to this large drop.
October 15, 2008
Two weeks following the largest drop in history, the stock market dropped significantly for a second time, which was just the beginning of the major financial crisis that overtook the nation in 2008. The market dropped a staggering 733.08 points in one day.
September 29, 2008
On this particular day, the stock market dropped a record 777.68 points. It’s the biggest one-day drop in history, and it was only the first of several notable drops to occur in 2008. This is the year the financial crisis occurred, and it’s the time in which many investors lost fortunes in the stock market due to a lack of confidence in the financial industry.
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