Stock market madness: The Dow Jones just suffered its worst point drop in history

February 05, 2018

The great selloff continues. On the same day that Jerome Powell was sworn in as the new Federal Reserve chairman, the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its largest intraday point decline in history, plunging more than 1,500 points before recovering slightly. The drop beat the previous record of 778 set during the 2008 financial crisis, NPR reports.

Overall, the index closed down 1,175 points for the day, falling below 25,000 and wiping out all the gains it had made during 2018 so far. Per CNBC, the S&P 500 also closed down 7%, its biggest decline since 2011.

The drop is being driven in part by concerns over inflation, although some analysts pointed out that the dip is more notable for effect on our collective psyches than it is as a harbinger of an imminent financial collapse.

“This selloff, in the bigger scheme of things, is not that big,” Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, told CNBC. “But it is very important in psychological terms.”