Talk:Stock market downturn of 2002/Archive 2

Isn't this a bit premature to write-up as such? 2002 is hardly half over, we have no idea what the stock market is going to do. Can we already dub this "the stock market crash of 2002"?

What defines a crash? I don't think there are any real hard-and-fast rules... in the past a crash has been things like Black Monday where the market fell a significant percentage in one day. This didn't happen here, exactly - the market only fell a few hundred points in any particular day. Then again, it slid 3000 points in two months - 28%. Graft

Let me go on record as stating that this article is far too premature for an encylop&aelig;dia. (I'll also make a prediction that future economic historians won't recognise any such crash, except perhaps in the context of a specific industry, but that's just a hunch.) &mdash; Toby 16:28 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT)

I agree with the above criticisms. What to call the stock market downturn obviously depends on historical perspective, and how it all turns out.

So, what do we do about it? Shall we redirect the article to a name that reflects such reality as we presently know and can agree upon?

--Larry Sanger

I had, I thought, fixed some of that--but then someone edited it to a more definite "the market crashed". I'm torn between "2002 bear market" as a better title and the idea that it's too soon to have an encyclopedia article at all. Vicki Rosenzweig

I oppose the very existence of the article, but I'd wait to hear from its writers before chucking it all to meta; they may well have a case. But if we do keep it, then 2002 bear market is certainly a better title; even a crash is a bear market, just a very bear one (I think). &mdash; Toby 19:16 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT)


 * I agree -- "Crash" has the connotation that this all happened in a short time span. In reality the state of affairs has been a progressive slide down (sic "bear market"). --mav


 * Yep, everyone calls it a "bear market," and hardly anyone is calling it a "crash." I'm also wondering what the point of the article is.  I mean, will we have articles about every stock market downturn in history?  (Maybe, but the question is, is that a good way to divide up economic history?  Not being a historian of economics, I haven't a clue.)


 * And yep, giving the main authors a chance to respond makes sense.


 * BTW, I'm not "back," Toby, just had a few comments is all. :-) --Larry Sanger

I got my figures by inspecting Yahoo Finance at and applying an compound interest calculation in Excel. --Ed Poor 08:59 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)