The Dow Jones Industrial Average’s largest one-day point drop during the 2008 financial crisis was 777.68 points on September 29, 2008.
The fall came after the United States House of Representatives rejected the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the legislation associated with the proposed $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Investors feared that the rejection would leave financial institutions without an emergency rescue framework as credit markets deteriorated.
The loss was the largest point decline in the Dow at that time, although later crashes produced larger point drops because the index had reached much higher numerical levels. Point losses and percentage losses are not interchangeable: a smaller point move can represent a larger percentage decline when the index level is lower.