The Best Stock Market Day in History Would Push the Dow Up 6,700 Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 21, 9:15AM EDT

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The highest one-day rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average was more than 15%.
What could trigger a similar increase today?

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The Best Stock Market Day in History Would Push the Dow Up 6,700 Today — © Bigc Studio / Shutterstock.com

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15.3% on March 13, 1933, which is the all-time one-day record. A similar increase today would push the Dow up 6,700 points. The S&P 500 has risen by almost that percentage in the past year.

The 1933 Dow jump was due to a move by President Roosevelt to stop a Great Depression bank panic. Americans had lost faith in the bank system. Roosevelt had to put brakes on the frenzy. So, he declared a bank holiday to steady the system.

What Could Trigger Such a Gain Today?

Could the market rise as much today? Maybe. The sole possible trigger in the short term would be an end to trade wars if U.S. tariffs on all imports from any country remained at 10%. There is worry that 30% tariffs on the European Union could cause an escalation pattern. The figure planned for Canada and Mexico is currently 30%. The figure for China could also be that high.

Pessimists about tariffs say that they could take U.S. inflation to near 10%. The Cato Institute puts the number at 9.5%. A 9.1% increase in the consumer price index (CPI) in June 2022 jolted the United States. That was a 40-year high. The Federal Reserve raised rates seven times in the year after that. The current CPI rate of over 2% is considered “stubborn.” It is hard to imagine what a 9% increase would be called.

Tariffs are often called a tax on goods bought by consumers. These taxes erode household budgets. The household budget challenge reduces consumer spending, which is the primary engine of gross domestic product (GDP). A fall in GDP eventually causes a recession. Recessions trigger job losses. The downward spiral can last for as much as two years. The Great Recession lasted between a year and a half to two years, depending on the yardstick.

The stock market is rising now. In part, it is because investors believe that the United States and its trading partners will settle on tariff rates lower than those the Trump administration says will start on August 1. Calling off the plan would prompt a substantial upward jolt to the economy, and the market would react appropriately. Does that trigger a 15% jump in the Dow? Who knows. It has happened before.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.