The crash that followed the Nasdaq Composite’s peak on March 10, 2000, was called the dot-com crash.
During the late 1990s, investors poured money into internet companies, often valuing businesses on expected growth rather than profits. The Nasdaq Composite reached 5,048.62 on March 10, 2000, after years of rapid gains. As earnings disappointed and interest-rate expectations changed, technology shares began a prolonged decline.
The collapse did not affect every technology company equally, and the internet itself continued to transform business and society. Many speculative companies failed, while firms with durable revenue models survived and later expanded. The dot-com crash is therefore different from a single trading-day shock: it was a broad, extended unwinding of an investment bubble.