Talk:List of largest daily changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Recent changes

While yesterday's drop in the Dow is reflected on this list, more recent volatility has not been noted. I will update these figures. --Bwryan2006 (talk) 12:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that. The source file from Dow Jones had not been updated since Sept 3. I've now added the missing big gains of Sept 18-19, and big losses of Sept 15, 17, and 22. Hopefully I didn't miss anything else this time. --Seattle Skier (talk) 13:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems like the largest percent declines should be updated: http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/the-day-stocks-rose-but-the-dow-plunged-423/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.46.55 (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. If the article is accurate, December 12, 1914 was an artifact, not an actual decline. Superm401 - Talk 21:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Middle of Day

I assume that this page should not be updated in the middle of the trading day (that is that the figures of biggest adds/drops should not go up until it's official)? Smartyllama (talk) 18:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

support intra-day records are still records. i was looking for the exact figure but haven't found it. just says more than 800 down. Lihaas (talk) 23:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

...and a new record for intra-day point swing... -- 97.113.85.46 (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Intra-day records are records, but records should not be recorded until they are known with certainty. If you don't have the exact figure, don't post an inexact figure. It's that simple. Superm401 - Talk 04:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Which is why I didn't post the figure. But if the intra-day swing is 800+points, and it breaks the previous record, then the intra-day swing at the end of day will still at least be that much. The actual amount might change, but the day's low cannot suddenly become higher and the day's high cannot get lower. Either they stay the same or move apart. Either way, my statement was correct. -- 97.113.85.46 (talk) 14:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to get into a whole big thing here, so for my part, I apologize. -- 97.113.85.46 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC).

No problem. It's just better to wait for details before updating the page. Superm401 - Talk 20:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Column Sorting

None of the columns sort correctly when clicked (at least in IE7/8). Date and % values appear to sort alphabetically rather than by actual value. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.121.104.129 (talk) 02:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Swing Percentages?

What do you think about adding a column to the swing table that would show swing/close (or swing/high or swing/low or even all three)? -- Unimath (talk) 01:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is very important as a 100 point swing with the Dow at 15,000 makes little difference and it is was huge when it was at 1500. Ee79 (talk) 03:16, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Go Go Go!

Looks like this article is going to need to be updated in an hour and a quarter. I'll do so if it hasn't already been done by then. —  X  S  G  19:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Article locked, no good. (+936 pts!) AgentFade2Black 20:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by AgentFade2Black (talk • contribs)

Updated and protected 3 hours

I added the official closing price from my data sources. Let me know if someone has better data or if I goofed and I'll be happy to change it. Leaving it protected for 3 hours. Ronnotel (talk) 20:13, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know which data source you use, but there's definitely controversy. Yahoo Finance and Google Finance both claim +936.42, 11.08%, closing at 9,387,61. —  X  S  G  20:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

XSG is right. the official closing is 9387.61, +936.42. Supertigerman (talk) 20:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting my opening print from Spryware, which is usually pretty good. I've got some other sources here, I'll hunt around a little. Ronnotel (talk) 20:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I just updated the numbers to what you all are saying. Its what I saw on Google and MarketWatch. I couldn't find a source that matched the numbers previous posted.↔NMajdan•talk 20:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I see an opening print of 8462.42 and a closing print of 9387.61 from multiple sources. Last time I checked, 9387.61 - 8462.42 = 925.19 (and Excel agrees). Can anyone find a definitive opening print? Never mind, difference is between opening print and previous close. Sorry. Ronnotel (talk) 20:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Previous close was 8,451.19.↔NMajdan•talk 20:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your dedication to Wikipedia accuracy. Even if the number is or was wrong, I'm confident it will eventually be set right.  :) —  X  S  G  20:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The article is clear. The figures are between the previous day's close and the current close. Thus, the current values are correct for 10/13. Superm401 - Talk 04:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

What was the point of full protection?

I don't understand how 4 edits from 4 different users constitutes and edit war. Seems like jumping the gun on page protection. Gudeldar (talk) 20:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Highly visible page being vandalized. It's unprotected now. Ronnotel (talk) 20:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any vandalism before your protection. Can you give me a diff? In fact, you seemed to use the protection as an opportunity to make your own edit, even though the markets were still clearing, making the figure you gave wrong. Superm401 - Talk 03:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

[1]. Perhaps not intentional vandalism, but clearly gave the wrong impression at a time when the page was under heavy load. I can assure my intent was not to use protection to "win" an edit war. The subject matter is hardly controversial - just adding a number to a table. Ronnotel (talk) 10:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Can we expand?

It would be really great if we could make this top 50 or 100. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.82.205.23 (talk) 21:01, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I like this idea as well. With all the recent market turmoil, the lists are being dominated by late '08 figures. An expansion to 30+ may be in order? I Like Cheeseburgers (talk) 21:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

bad numbers

I see at least three different figures for Dec 1 '08 (today), two of which appear consecutively in the percentage decline list. wait until we have accurate numbers to throw them up? At least until the markets have finished being calculated...

I agree. Although the market "closes" as 4pm (Eastern), the final totals continue to settle until around 4:15-4:30. Better to wait a little bit before updating the tables. I Like Cheeseburgers (talk) 21:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Largest intraday point swings not meaningful

I argue that intraday point swings are not meaningful. Of course they have all occurred in modern times with the Dows nominal value (still) near all time highs. I propose that this section be replaced with a chart that shows the largest intraday swings by fraction (percent). This would be much more meaningful as it would reflect the true volatility. However, how to figure this out, I have no idea. TimL (talk) 15:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Point swing #9 not possible

9 2008-09-29 10,365.45 11,139.94 10,365.45 774.49 -777.68

How can the point swing be 774 when the net change is 777? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.176.163 (talk) 09:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, it is possible. The intraday point swing is the difference between the high and low values during a single trading day, while the net change is the difference between that day's close and the previous day's close. Two different things. The opening value on a given trading day need not be the same as the previous day's close (and in general, it almost never is equal). I think this is because stocks in the DJIA began trading at different hours, some of them prior to the opening of the NYSE and the first calculation of the day's DJIA. There may be other (or better) reasons, too.

So if the opening value on a given day is less than the previous day's close, then it is entirely possible for that day's intraday point swing to be less than the net change. --Seattle Skier (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Slightly different numbers for Largest intraday point swings using Yahoo's data

Date	Open	High	Low	Close	Volume	Adj Close	Intraday Swing	Intraday % Swing
10/10/08	8568.67	8989.13	7773.71	8451.19	11456230400	8451.19	1215.42	0.144
10/13/08	8462.42	9501.91	8462.42	9387.61	7263369600	9387.61	1039.49	0.111
10/09/08	9261.69	9522.77	8523.27	8579.19	8285670400	8579.19	999.50	0.117
10/28/08	8178.72	9112.51	8153.79	9065.12	7096950400	9065.12	958.72	0.106
11/13/08	8281.14	8898.41	7947.74	8835.25	7849120000	8835.25	950.67	0.108
10/16/08	8577.04	9073.64	8176.17	8979.26	7984500000	8979.26	897.47	0.100
10/14/08	9388.97	9924.28	9050.06	9310.99	8161990400	9310.99	874.22	0.094
09/29/08	11139.62	11139.62	10266.76	10365.45	7305060000	10365.45	872.86	0.084
04/04/00	11225.34	11531.24	10682.72	11164.84	1515460000	11164.84	848.52	0.076
01/03/01	10637.42	11212.62	10367.19	10945.75	188070000	10945.75	845.43	0.077
10/06/08	10322.52	10322.52	9503.1	9955.5	7956020000	9955.5	819.42	0.082
10/07/08	9955.42	10205.04	9391.67	9447.11	7069209600	9447.11	813.37	0.086
01/23/08	11969.08	12339.1	11530.12	12270.17	3241680000	12270.17	808.98	0.066
10/15/08	9301.91	9301.91	8516.5	8577.91	6542330000	8577.91	785.41	0.092
11/20/08	7995.53	8224.35	7464.51	7552.29	9093740000	7552.29	759.84	0.101
07/24/02	7698.46	8243.07	7489.53	8191.29	2775560000	8191.29	753.54	0.092
04/14/00	10922.85	10922.85	10173.92	10305.77	1279700000	10305.77	748.93	0.073
09/18/08	10609.01	11149.07	10403.75	11019.69	10082689600	11019.69	745.32	0.068
10/08/08	9437.23	9778.04	9042.97	9258.1	8716329600	9258.1	735.07	0.079

e.g. Jan 3, 2001 http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=^DJI&a=00&b=1&c=2001&d=00&e=31&f=2001&g=d comes up on my list, but not this one. Here are the October numbers which give different High and Low close values ( http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=^DJI&a=09&b=1&c=2008&d=09&e=31&f=2008&g=d ) . I'm not gonna add it to the article right now, I'll leave that for someone else. --Rajah (talk) 23:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Largest intraday point swings Percentages using Yahoo's data

• In case anybody wants to add it, here they are.
• The percentages are calculated using ABS(High - Low) / Close .

Date	Open	High	Low	Close	Volume	Adj Close	Intraday Swing	Intraday % Swing
10/19/87	2164.16	2164.16	1677.55	1738.74	604300000	1738.74	486.61	0.280
10/20/87	1738.74	2067.47	1616.21	1841.01	608100000	1841.01	451.26	0.245
10/29/29	252.38	252.38	212.33	230.07	16410000	230.07	40.05	0.174
07/21/33	96.26	98.69	84.45	88.71	9570000	88.71	14.24	0.161
10/28/29	295.18	295.18	256.75	260.64	9210000	260.64	38.43	0.147
10/10/08	8568.67	8989.13	7773.71	8451.19	11456230400	8451.19	1215.42	0.144
10/24/29	305.85	312.76	272.32	299.47	12900000	299.47	40.44	0.135
10/06/31	87.51	100.49	87.51	99.34	4310000	99.34	12.98	0.131
10/09/08	9261.69	9522.77	8523.27	8579.19	8285670400	8579.19	999.50	0.117
10/30/29	230.98	260.93	230.98	258.47	10730000	258.47	29.95	0.116
07/20/33	103.58	105.65	94.76	96.26	8120000	96.26	10.89	0.113
10/13/08	8462.42	9501.91	8462.42	9387.61	7263369600	9387.61	1039.49	0.111
11/13/08	8281.14	8898.41	7947.74	8835.25	7849120000	8835.25	950.67	0.108
10/28/08	8178.72	9112.51	8153.79	9065.12	7096950400	9065.12	958.72	0.106
12/18/31	73.79	81.1	72.62	80.69	3620000	80.69	8.48	0.105
08/12/32	68.9	69.06	62.45	63.11	3710000	63.11	6.61	0.105
09/14/32	69.85	72.41	65.54	65.88	3250000	65.88	6.87	0.104
11/06/29	252.2	252.2	228.35	232.13	5920000	232.13	23.85	0.103
11/07/29	232.13	242.1	217.84	238.19	7180000	238.19	24.26	0.102
11/20/08	7995.53	8224.35	7464.51	7552.29	9093740000	7552.29	759.84	0.101

--Rajah (talk) 23:15, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Largest intraday point swings list incorrect

According to AP:

A computerized selloff possibly caused by a simple typographical error triggered one of the most turbulent days in Wall Street history Thursday and sent the Dow Jones industrials to a loss of almost 1,000 points, nearly a tenth of their value, in less than half an hour. It was the biggest drop ever during a trading day.

At its lowest Thursday, the Dow was down 998.50 points in its largest point drop ever, eclipsing the 780.87 lost during the course of trading on Oct. 15, 2008, during the height of the financial crisis. The Dow closed that day down 733.08, the biggest closing loss it has ever suffered.

WSJ also says:

By 2:47, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had crossed 10000 in the biggest intraday point drop in its history.

Another big problem in the article is that it has no data on the biggest three-day changes, which are much more meaningful than intraday changes (same AP source):

The Dow has lost 631 points, or 5.7 percent, since Tuesday amid worries about Greece. That is the largest three-day percentage drop since March 2009, when the stock market was nearing its bottom following the financial meltdown. --Espoo (talk) 05:19, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Espoo, you are mistaking intraday point drop with intraday point swing -- they are two different things:

* intraday point drop = daily opening value – daily minimum value

* intraday point swing = daily maximum value – daily minimum value

The May 6, 2010 market event caused the largest intraday point drop, but only the 2nd largest intraday point swing. So the list in the article is correct as is.

And the AP source that you cite does not state that "three-day changes ... are much more meaningful than intraday changes" -- those are your own words, not AP's. Nor would any reputable source make such a claim, since they are two unrelated things and not comparable in any way. Large intraday point swings are due to extreme short-term volatility (typically caused by psychological factors such as fear and panic, or perhaps very rarely by trading errors as in this case), while large three-day changes are generally due to some underlying market trend with a more substantial economic basis. There appears to be no source which lists the largest three-day (or weekly or monthly) changes, so unless such a reference is found, there is no way to include such lists in the article.

--Seattle Skier (talk) 20:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

No recent updates

Evidently, work on this list has discontinued, because the latest daily changes are from 2011. Is that right? Glatisant (talk) 06:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Since 2011, there were no major changes ... until this past August. The article will continue to evolve in the future.--OfficerAPC (talk) 19:07, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Largest Intraday Point Changes

Recently, four lists were created for the largest intraday point changes (see article for more details). I would like to open up a debate to discuss whether large intraday point changes with turnovers should be recorded in one or two lists.--OfficerAPC (talk) 19:10, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

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Who cares about points?

On 12 March 2020 the Dow Jones lost six times more points (2352.60) in a single day than there were points in the Dow Jones in 1929 before the crash (381.17) and more points than there were before the crash in 1987 (2246.17). All of the largest point-moves are of course biased toward the present. These point "records" have no academic interest whatsoever. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

It shows the way the markets evolve over time, as well as helps keep track of sudden swings for people not in the know. Sure, they could just look at a market page and get the same numbers, but that's true of a lot of different content on Wikipedia. As long as the percentages are kept in their own column with accompanying points, there's no harm in presenting this information, and outliers can be spotted much easier in a list with mostly current dates in it. Evilmiera (talk) 20:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I totally agree; what we should do is remove all of the largest daily POINT changes except for the top spot in both directions. Point changes are logarithmic, while percent changes are linear and have more academic interest. This change will need to be done for ALL other stock market indices. 9March2019 (talk) 20:55, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Where did March 12, 2020 go?

Today, March 16, saw the largest point drop ever of 2997 points, but the previous record - 2352 points - was set four days earlier and is now not showing up on the chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:282:4100:709C:68FE:7396:822:E5D6 (talk) 20:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Points-first or Percentages-first

An obstinate editor wants this page to be shown as percentages-first. He has altered the order without any consensus twice. This article has been shown as points-first for years, (or since the time it created) and the same article in other languages (Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian and Korean) have also been so. Do you have any reasonable ground? Wikipedia is a public space, not someone's private assets. LibraFM (talk) 13:22, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not the one who edited it to be that way, but I would say that for historical comparison, percentage points are more useful. Because of that, I would favor putting percentages first.--Beneficii (talk) 13:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Could you please propose voting about this? You, @Nicolas Perrault and the editor I mentioned seem to insist on the same reason for Percentages-first. I'll just obey the result. LibraFM (talk) 16:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

As many people return to this page repeatedly when there are big changes in the DJIA, consistency is important. I was initially confused by the change to percentages first, so undid the edit. While I agree that percentages are perhaps more relevant in some circumstances, point changes have value in that they reflect recent volatility. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexmahdavi (talk • contribs) 13:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

It creates a recent bias, however. The bigger the value of the Dow, the bigger absolute point changes will tend to be in similar circumstances. In 1929, on Black Monday, the market dropped "only" 38 points; nowadays, a 38 point drop would be seen as insignificant, little more than a random fluctuation. But relative to its value at the time, 1929's Black Monday was highly significant, and is recognized as such in the history books. I think emphasizing absolute points can obscure that.--Beneficii (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Percent change is the only thing that makes sense for historical comparison and, for that matter, comparison with any other US or non-US index. Any thing besides percent changes obscures the real degree of change as well as the recent volatility (pace what Alexmahdavi asserts). Unlike other numbers that measure some physical property, in the case of indices, the start values chosen are completely arbitrary.

We can make an example to emphasize the absurdity: Assume a hypothetical index that at one point in time had a value of 1.00 on day 1 and changed to a value of 2.00 on day 2, which is a one point change. And, we can look at another point in time and find the same index with a value of 100,000.00 at day 100 that changes to a value to 100,002.00 at day 101, which is a two point change. Looking at points, the change from day 100 to 101 has a larger point difference. But, that is a worthless comparison, since the day 100–101 change is only 0.002% while the change from day 1 to day 2 is 100%.

It can only make somewhat sense to look at point differences if you keep your point comparisons to a narrow range in time. (But, even then, it's bad.) Or, it could make a little sense if the Dow Jones was a mostly flat line over its history (which is not true, of course).

How the article has been for years is besides the point. I never looked at it until now. Make the page the best page it can be and not what it was the past. Then, after a while, we can say that it will confusing to put points before percentages. So, you can keep percentages at the top for consistency. (This worry seems very minor and, thus, not much of an objection to me. Instead, I'd suggest that you just evaluate proposed article changes based on the intrinsic merits of edits.)

On consistency, I did notice that the S&P500 list used percentages first. And so, I changed this article to match the S&P500 list (as well as it being the only sensible numerical comparison).

For the pages in other languages, you can change them to have percentages first, too. More consistency! (Often, other lang pages just copy&paste English articles and translate them. Could be as simple as that.)

Is there any merit at all to putting points first besides that being the way it was before?

(You know I could also go further and say that there is no reason for points to be mentioned at all on this page. However, I do realize that sometimes the news reports points in their misguided way. So, I don't object to points being mentioned. But, of course, I would suggest that all readers simply ignore them....) – ishwar  (speak) 18:50, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, the point changes lists should be removed entirely because they are slanted towards recent events and will likely repeat that in the future, when the Dow is much higher than where it is now. Content pertaining to timelines of events must be balanced, per WP:Recentism. 9March2019 (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

that's fine with me. – ishwar  (speak) 03:54, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

seems like there is general agreement for using percentages. – ishwar  (speak) 01:35, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I put the percentage point changes first.--Beneficii (talk) 09:26, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Color change

Can we change the color on these charts or at least bold the text? The contrast between red and 1px wide lettering on desktop is a pain in the butt to read. 108.90.7.75 (talk) 05:32, 30 May 2020 (UTC)