10 Largest Drops of Dow Jones
Sep 15, 2008 
Sun
In case you care, here are the 10 largest one-day drops of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in terms of number of points in the history of the index.
| Rank | Date | Closing Value | Change (points) |
Change (%) |
| 1 | 09/29/2008 | 10,365.45 | -777.68 | -6.98% |
| 2 | 10/15/2008 | 8,577.91 | -733.08 | -7.87% |
| 3 | 09/17/2001 | 8,920.70 | -684.81 | -7.13% |
| 4 | 10/09/2008 | 8,579.19 | -678.91 | -7.33% |
| 5 | 04/14/2000 | 10,305.77 | -617.78 | -5.66% |
| 6 | 10/27/1997 | 7,161.15 | -554.26 | -7.18% |
| 7 | 08/31/1998 | 7,539.07 | -512.61 | -6.37% |
| 8 | 10/07/2008 | 9,447.11 | -508.39 | -5.11% |
| 9 | 10/19/1987 | 1,738.74 | -508.00 | -22.61% |
| 10 | 09/15/2008 | 10,917.51 | -504.48 | -4.42% |
Today’s 504-point loss ranked No. 6.
Update: On September 29, 2008, the Dow lost 777.68 points as the House rejected the proposed bailout plan, the largest point drop ever.
I think that a more representative chart would be one where you look at percentage changes in the index, as opposed to point changes. The 500 point drop in 1987 was scarier than the one yesterday..