Market History

The Trump administration imposed reciprocal tariffs averaging 25% on most trading partners in February-April 2025. Markets priced the most aggressive trade policy shift since 1930, with ripple effects across currencies, bond yields, and supply chains.

The Bank of Japan hiked rates on July 31, 2024. The yen rallied 8% in days. The Nikkei crashed 12% in one session. VIX briefly spiked to 65.

Credit Suisse was forced into an emergency acquisition by UBS over the weekend of March 18-19, 2023. The deal wiped out AT1 bondholders while preserving some equity, reshaping bank capital structure risk assessment globally.

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, 2023, the second-largest bank failure in US history. The Fed's response redefined liquidity backstops for the banking system.

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss's September 23, 2022 mini-budget triggered a collapse in sterling and gilts. LDI pension strategies faced forced liquidation. The Bank of England intervened to prevent financial instability.

The Fed raised rates 425bps in 2022, the fastest hiking cycle since the Volcker era. The 60/40 portfolio posted its worst year since 1937.

GameStop rose 1,625% in January 2021 as retail traders on r/WallStreetBets forced a short squeeze. Hedge funds lost billions. Robinhood restricted trading.

The fastest 30%+ decline in S&P 500 history, followed by the fastest recovery. COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented monetary and fiscal intervention.

Overnight repo rates spiked from 2% to 10% on September 17, 2019, forcing the Fed to intervene with its first open market operations since 2008. The episode revealed structural strains in US money markets that persisted into 2020.

Hong Kong's 2019 protests over an extradition bill and Beijing's 2020 National Security Law reshaped the territory's role as Asia's financial hub. Capital outflows, reduced multinational presence, and regulatory divergence from the West had durable effects on regional finance.

On February 5, 2018, the VIX doubled intraday, the largest single-day VIX move ever. Short-volatility ETNs lost 90% of their value, and the XIV was terminated.

The UK voted to leave the European Union on June 23, 2016. The pound fell 10% overnight, its largest single-day drop since floating in 1971.

The PBoC devalued the yuan by 1.9% in a single day on August 11, 2015, the first meaningful devaluation since 1994. Global risk assets convulsed.

The Swiss National Bank abandoned its 1.20 EUR/CHF floor on January 15, 2015. The franc immediately surged 30%, blowing up retail FX brokers and exposing the fragility of exchange rate commitments.

Brent crude fell from $115 in June 2014 to $27 in January 2016, a 77% collapse. Shale oversupply and OPEC's refusal to cut production broke the commodity supercycle that had dominated markets since 2003.

When Fed Chair Ben Bernanke suggested tapering QE in May 2013, 10Y Treasury yields nearly doubled, emerging markets cracked, and carry trades unwound violently.

ECB President Mario Draghi's July 26, 2012 speech in London ended the acute eurozone crisis. The commitment, backed by Outright Monetary Transactions, arrested peripheral yield spikes without buying a single bond.

S&P stripped the United States of its AAA credit rating on August 5, 2011, the first time in history. Markets whipsawed as the debt ceiling fight showed political risk could reprice government creditworthiness.

On May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 1,000 points in minutes before recovering. The Flash Crash exposed the fragility of modern electronic market structure.

Greece's debt revelation in October 2009 triggered a multi-year eurozone crisis that threatened the euro's survival. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy required emergency support. Mario Draghi's "whatever it takes" in 2012 ended the acute phase.

The 2008 Financial Crisis remains the deepest and most instructive market event of the 21st century. Subprime losses cascaded through leveraged balance sheets, froze interbank lending, and forced unprecedented central bank intervention.

US home prices peaked in summer 2006 after a 106% rally from 2000. Subprime mortgage underwriting collapsed in late 2006, setting up the 2008 crisis. The peak is the canonical example of a market top visible only in retrospect.

The Nasdaq Composite peaked at 5,048 on March 10, 2000 and fell 78% over 31 months. Internet companies went bankrupt en masse. The crash reshaped venture capital, corporate governance, and accounting standards.

Russia's default on August 17, 1998 blew up Long-Term Capital Management, which had $125 billion of assets on $4.7 billion of equity. The Fed orchestrated a private bailout to prevent systemic contagion.

Eleven European Union members locked exchange rates on January 1, 1999, creating the euro as a virtual currency. Physical notes and coins circulated from January 1, 2002. The euro became the largest monetary experiment since Bretton Woods.

Thailand's forced devaluation of the baht on July 2, 1997 triggered contagion across Southeast Asia. Indonesia, Korea, and Malaysia saw currency collapses, sovereign debt crises, and economic contractions of 10-15%.

The Fed's surprise 25bp hike on February 4, 1994 triggered one of the worst bond market selloffs in history. 10Y yields rose 240bps in nine months. Orange County, Mexico, and Kidder Peabody were casualties.

The Nikkei 225 peaked at 38,957 on December 29, 1989, then fell 82% over 13 years. Japan entered its "lost decades" of deflation, zero rates, and structural stagnation that still shapes global markets today.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6% on October 19, 1987, the largest single-day percentage decline in history. Portfolio insurance and program trading amplified the crash.

G5 finance ministers agreed at the Plaza Hotel in New York to coordinate intervention that weakened the dollar. The accord engineered a 50% decline in DXY over two years and set the stage for the 1987 crash and Japan's bubble.

Mexico defaulted on its external debt in August 1982, triggering a seven-year crisis that engulfed Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and most of Latin America. The "lost decade" reshaped emerging market finance.

Paul Volcker's Fed raised interest rates to 20% to break entrenched inflation. The policy triggered the deepest post-war recession but ended the stagflation era and established inflation-targeting credibility.

OPEC quadrupled oil prices and embargoed shipments to the United States in response to US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The shock launched a decade of stagflation.

On August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at $35/oz, ending the Bretton Woods system and ushering in the modern fiat era.