NASDAQ Dot Com Burst

The emergence of the internet in the 1990s created a new and exciting opportunity for businesses worldwide.  Entrepreneurs and investors poured millions upon millions of dollars into websites, hoping to become successful in the profitable internet sector.  This period of website speculation, known as the dot-com bubble, lasted from 1995-2000.  During the dot-com bubble, the world’s stock markets experienced rapid growth; businesses watched their stock rise for little reason besides an “e-” prefix or a “.com” suffix. As is the case with most speculative bubbles, the dot-com bubble had to eventually burst.

On this day, March 10, in 2000, the NASDAQ Composite stock market index peaked at 5132.52, which marked the beginning of a downward trend for the dot.com era.  By the time the NADSAQ peaked, internet companies attributed for about 8% of the entire U.S. stock market.  The bursting of the dot-com bubble meant that a large number of these internet companies could not be sustained as investment capital became scarce.

The stock market would continue to crash from 2000-2002, which led to many web companies declaring bankruptcy.  Only 50% of dot-coms were able to survive until 2004.  Notable losers in the dot-com bubble burst were WorldCom, InfoSpace, The Learning Company and pets.com