513 points (6.4%)
Some of the very stocks that lifted Wall Street to stratospheric heights in
the late '90s like Yahoo! and America Online sent the markets
spiraling south. Analysts viewed this bearish run as simple market
correction: once in-favor stocks could no longer rise higher, they were
bound to come back to earth. It just happened a little more quickly than
anyone expected, as confidence among investors had fallen due to reports of
a drop in new home sales and business deterioration among domestic
manufacturers.
Top 10 Dow Jones Drops
In the wake of the U.S. House of Representatives' 228-205 rejection of the Bush administration's $700 billion bailout bill, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 778 points. It was the largest one-day drop in history, though in terms of market percentage lost, it failed to approach the calamitous crashes of 1987, 1929, and 1914.
Alex Altman & Frances Romero