June 20, 2008
It was bad from the opening bell, and by the end of the day the NASDAQ was off -2.27 percent, while the DJIA and the S&P500 lost around -1.85 percent.
There have been only 87 days as bad, or worse, than today since January 2000. But it is the 10th time this year. By contrast, in 2007, there were just ten all year, and only two occurring before the middle of August.
Only seven such days hit the market between 2003 and 2006. But in the years of market decline, as in 2002, there were 24; yet, to make a comparison with the present, that year had only six such losses before July.
For the week, the DJIA suffered the sharpest decline, slicing -3.78 percent from last Friday, with the S&P500 close behind, at -3.10 percent. The NASDAQ, on the other hand, declined just -1.97 percent.
A point of interest is the divergence of weekly changes of these indices. The NASDAQ had far smaller losses not just this week, but on four other Fridays in the past ten weeks. This is true also for four positive weeks: the NASDAQ performed much better than the DJIA and the S&P500 in eight of the past ten weeks.
DJIA -1.83 percent
NASDAQ -2.27 percent
S&P500 -1.85 percent