§ Dot-com boom and bust [ edit ]

Nasdaq Composite 1970–2012

On July 17, 1995, the index closed above the 1,000 mark for the first time. It made steady gains in the following years to reach 2,000 points by 1998, then began to accelerate significantly. This process mushroomed in late 1999 amid concerns that businesses would require massive technology replacement to achieve Y2K compatibility, allowing the index to close that year at 4,069.31 points. On March 10, 2000, the index finally peaked at an intra-day high of 5,132.52, [ 1 ] and closed at an all-time high of 5,048.62. The decline from this peak signalled the beginning of the dot-com bubble burst.

The index declined to half its value within a year, and finally hit the bottom of the bear market trend on October 10, 2002, with an intra-day low of 1,108.49. While the index gradually recovered since then, it did not trade for more than half of its peak value until May 2007. The 2000s (decade) brought a mix of pessimistic news stemming from the Early 2000s recession. the September 11 attacks and the impending Afghan War along with the 2003 invasion of Iraq .

§ Financial crisis and aftermath [ edit ]

This article or section may be slanted towards recent events . Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective. (June 2013)

The index opened the fourth quarter of 2007 with new 80-month highs, closing above the 2,800 point mark on October 9, 2007, and reaching an intra-day level of 2,861.51 on October 31, 2007, the highest point reached on the index since January 24, 2001.

High energy prices and the possibility of recession dropped the NASDAQ into a bear market in early 2008, which was recognized on February 6 when the NASDAQ closed below the 2,300 level, about 20% below the recent highs. Furthermore, the failure of Lehman Brothers in September brought world financial markets into turmoil. The NASDAQ was no exception, experiencing record levels of market volatility. On September 29, 2008, the NASDAQ dropped nearly 200 points, the most since the tech bubble burst, losing 9.14% (third largest in history) to fall beneath the 2,000 level. Conversely, on October 13, 2008, the NASDAQ recorded a gain of nearly 200 points (more than 11%). On March 9, 2009, the composite hit a six-year intra-day low of 1,265.52 before recovering under the influence of Federal Reserve quantitative easing (QE).

Amid hope that the Great Recession. the United States housing bubble and the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009 were easing and possibly coming to an end, the NASDAQ established a volatile base from which the index would finally surpass the 3,000 mark, and the initial crash low of mid-2000 (3,042.66), for the first time since the end of the 20th century. This first occurred intra-day on February 29, 2012, before further volatile pullbacks. In 2012, the index managed a yearly close above 3,000 for only the second time in its history, with a total of 3,019.51 points. With the extension of relatively low tax rates for most incomes, the index jumped to begin 2013 with only minor pullbacks. On November 26, 2013, the index made its first close above 4,000 since September 7, 2000. Although it still stood almost 20% below its all-time highs, the index did set a new record annual close of 4,176.59 on December 31, 2013. On March 2, 2015, NASDAQ closes above 5,000 for the first time since March 9, 2000.

§ Criteria [ edit ]

To be eligible for inclusion in the Composite, a security’s U.S. listing must be exclusively on the NASDAQ Stock Market (unless the security was dually listed on another U.S. market prior to 2004 and has continuously maintained such listing), and must be one of the following security types:

• American Depositary Receipts (ADRs)
• Common Stock
• Limited Partnership Interests
• Ordinary Shares
• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
• Shares of Beneficial Interest (SBIs)
• Tracking Stocks

Closed-end funds, convertible debentures, exchange traded funds, preferred stocks, rights, warrants, units and other derivative securities are not included. If at any time a component security no longer meets the above criteria, the security becomes ineligible for inclusion in the Composite Index and is removed.

§ Investing [ edit ]

Investing in the NASDAQ Composite Index is currently made accessible through an exchange-traded fund issued by fund manager Fidelity Investments. Introduced on October 1, 2003, the ETF (NASDAQ : ONEQ ) attempts to match the overall performance of the index. It is not nearly as popular as the cubes (NASDAQ : QQQ ) which track the NASDAQ-100 .