On Friday, March 9, 2001, the anniversary of the Nasdaq first closing above 5,000, the index ended the day at 2,052.78. In twelve months, the total market value of companies listed on the Nasdaq had dropped from $6.7 trillion to $3.2 trillion: $3.5 trillion in stock market wealth had vanished. Cisco Systems, which a year earlier had been the world’s most valuable company, worth $466.5 billion, was now valued at $164.2 billion. Yahoo!’s stock market value had fallen from $93.7 billion to $9.7 billion, Amazon.com’s from $22.8 billion to $4.2 billion. The Dow Jones Composite Internet Index, which
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