The Dot-Com Bubble Burst (2000)

The dot-com bubble burst (2000) ranks as one of the most spectacular eviscerations of speculative capital, with the Nasdaq losing 78% of its value from March 2000 to October 2002—destroying over $5 trillion in market capitalization. This was a sharper percentage drop than the 2008 financial crisis, which saw the S&P 500 fall 57%, yet it had far less real-economy impact. Hundreds of profitless internet startups, such as Pets.com (which burned through $300 million in its 1999 IPO), vanished almost overnight. The crash erased more than three times the value of the Japanese asset price bubble's initial losses, though Japan's aftermath proved longer-lasting.