S&P 500 Hits Dot-Com Bubble Peak On This Day In Market History

Benzinga will take a look back at a notable market-related moment that happened on this date.

What Happened? On March 24, 2000, the S&P 500 reached its dot-com bubble peak.

What Else Was Going On In The World? In 2000, the Expedition 1 mission sent the first astronaut crew ever to live on the International Space Station. In the Bush v. Gore case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to end the presidential election vote recount in Florida, making George W. Bush president. A gallon of gasoline cost $1.26.

S&P 500 Tops Out: The tech-centric Nasdaq was the epicenter of the dot-com bubble, but a rising tide lifts all boats. In the two years leading up to March 24, 2000, the S&P 500 gained 38.1%.

The Dow hit its dot-com era peak in January 2000, but the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 didn’t top out until March. The S&P 500 hit an intraday high of 1,552.87 on March 24.

Over the next two years, the S&P 500 dropped 24.8%, but it held up relatively well compared to the 62.7% drop in the Nasdaq.

Following its March 2000 peak, the S&P 500 wouldn’t make new all-time highs again until 2007. However, it fared much better than the Nasdaq, which wouldn’t surpass its dot-com bubble peak until 2015.

In March 2000, the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio was about 28.3. Today, it is about 39.8.

Twenty-two years later, investors who bought the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY on the day the S&P 500 peaked back in 2000 and held until today would be sitting on about a 289% total return.

This story was previously published on Benzinga.