Iceland’s stock exchange suffered the largest single-day percentage fall during the 2008 global financial crisis.
On October 14, 2008, the OMX Iceland 15 index fell 76.13% after trading resumed following a temporary suspension. The extraordinary drop reflected the collapse and restructuring of Iceland’s major banks, whose balance sheets had grown to several times the size of the national economy.
Iceland’s three largest banks—Glitnir, Landsbanki, and Kaupthing—failed or were taken under state control in October 2008. The financial shock caused the Icelandic government to seek an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund and other countries. The stock exchange’s fall was amplified by the removal or repricing of bank shares.
This statistic is often confused with the biggest one-day fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which occurred in percentage terms in 1987. Iceland’s 2008 figure concerns a national stock index during a banking-system collapse, not the Dow and not the largest absolute point decline.