This Month In Market History
We are here to help you look forward and build your future. In doing so, it's also important to know how we got to where we are today. Below you will find some interesting information that has shaped the landscape of the stock market over the years.
January 11th, 1946 – Dow crosses 200 for the first time after the great depression. The Dow first crossed 200 for the first time December 19 1927. It took nearly 20 years for the market to regain it’s pre-Great Depression levels!
January 4th, 2000 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its internet bubble peak of 11,722.98. Although the Dow would fare better than the technology heavy NASDAQ index, it would still fall nearly 40% to 7,286.27 by October 9th, 2002.
Many stocks began to roll over before the NASDAQ index peaked on March 10th, 2000. Just a few examples of the lack of breadth towards the end of the tech bubble:
The number of stocks hitting 52 week highs peaked on April 3rd 1998.Almost 2 full years before the NASDAQ peaked.
By the end of 1998, only 5 stocks accounted for more than half of the index’s gains.
When the Dow reached 10,000 on March 16th, 1999, 76% of the stocks in the index were down 15% or more.
January 20th, 2016 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls as much as 565 points on the day, U.S. stock markets have their worst start to a year in history. The start of 2016 saw the first real glimpse of volatility in years. The S&P 500 finished the month down 10.5%, the Russel 2000 was 30% of its highs of just a few months prior, and emerging markets fell nearly 15%. On this day in 2016, the Dow would trade down as many as 565 points, before rallying to close down only 249 points with the Dow at 15,766.74. On this day the Dow was down more than 1,600 points on the year.
January 22nd, 1993 – State Street’s Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts or the SPDR S&P 500, an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), begins trading on the American Stock Exchange. It was the first ETF to trade in the United States.
On its first day, over 1 million shares of the ETF would be traded. However, after the initial excitement wore off, daily volume would reach as low as 17,000 in March of 1993. It would take until June 1993 to catch on and maintain daily volume over 100,000 shares.
January 29th, 2001 – All NYSE stocks are quoted in decimals, ending the practice of trading in fractions which was used for more than two centuries.
Besides being a more modern way to quote stock prices, it is frequently unrealized how much money investors have saved due to this change.
Prior to stocks being quoted in decimals, shares were quote in fractions as low as 1/8th. This meant the minimum spread on a stock’s bid/ask was 12.5 cents. Today most stocks have a spread of only a few cents! So for many investors, this changed resulted in a savings of up to 11.5 cents per share!
