Friday, December 31st, 1999

A photograph of a town square at the stroke of midnight on the last night of 1999. Strings of warm golden bulbs cross overhead; the first fireworks open gold above the rooftops; confetti is in the air. The square is full of celebrating people in winter coats, nearly every arm raised with a glass of champagne, faces up toward the fireworks, mid-cheer. Near a lamppost an old man in a good coat looks with quiet satisfaction at a plain closed laptop tucked under his arm. At the center of the near ground, amid the raised glasses and seen from behind, stands a man in full clown makeup and a grey suit a half size too big — tidy lavender side-parted hair — perfectly still, holding no glass, his hands clasped behind his back holding a small brown paper bag.

The cork

S&P 500 1,469.25 · +4.78 · +0.33%

Two fears ended at the same midnight — that the computers would stop, and that the party would. Neither did, that night.

The photograph Retail at the Toast

The day's protagonist

The odometer — no symbol.

Move: 1999 → 2000 at an all-time high

The century's last session traded under Y2K watch: the world's earlier time zones rolled into 2000 with no computerized catastrophe while New York traded, and stocks drifted up to record closes on both major indexes — the S&P's fifth consecutive year of twenty-plus percent, the Nasdaq finishing the greatest single year a major index has ever had, up 85.6. The market's calendar rolled over at a high it would touch for only a few more weeks and then not see again until 2007. The champagne was real; so was the hangover's date, seventy days out.

The deeper account

Y2K remediation had cost an estimated $300–600 billion worldwide; the champagne was partly for the engineers.

The S&P's run: 1995 +34%, 1996 +20%, 1997 +31%, 1998 +27%, 1999 +19.5% — five consecutive years the like of which has not recurred.

Seventy days later the Nasdaq printed 5,048.62 and the wing's next page begins.

In the photograph of this day every glass in the square is raised but his hands stay behind his back, on the bag. Retail was glad like everyone else; he simply doesn't toast what isn't finished.

The record here is genuine and was honestly earned that evening; what hindsight added is the encyclopedia's business to record, not to mock.

The artifact

NIGHT OF DEC 31, 1999 · THE ROLLOVER · WATCH BILL MIDNIGHT, BY CITY sydney — midnight. clean. tokyo — midnight. clean. moscow — midnight. clean. paris, london — midnight. clean. new york — still trading. closed 1,469.25 — a record. NO FAULT FOUND WATCH OFFICER'S HAND two fears on the board tonight. both cleared. the champagne is partly ours. THE RECORD CLOSE WENT UNREVISITED UNTIL 2007 THE TOP ITSELF WAS SEVENTY DAYS OUT
The watch bill — kept through the world's midnights, one time zone at a time

The bill tracks the century's two simultaneous anxieties down to a single page: the machines, checked city by city as midnight rolled westward, and the market, which closed at the highest print in its history while the early time zones came in clean. Between three hundred and six hundred billion dollars had been spent to make the word "clean" possible — the watch officer's claim on the champagne is fair.

Read the watch bill

Printed text is shown plain; the watch officer's entries are shown in script.

NIGHT OF DEC 31, 1999 · THE ROLLOVER · WATCH BILL · MIDNIGHT, BY CITY

  • sydney — midnight. clean. · tokyo — midnight. clean. · moscow — midnight. clean. · paris, london — midnight. clean.
  • new york — still trading. closed 1,469.25 — a record.
  • NO FAULT FOUND
  • WATCH OFFICER'S HAND: two fears on the board tonight. both cleared. the champagne is partly ours.
  • THE RECORD CLOSE WENT UNREVISITED UNTIL 2007 · THE TOP ITSELF WAS SEVENTY DAYS OUT

On Friday, December 31, 1999, the S&P 500 closed at 1,469.25 — up 0.33 percent, an all-time high not seen again until 2007 — as the world's earlier time zones rolled into 2000 without computerized catastrophe. The index had returned more than nineteen percent for a fifth consecutive year, and the Nasdaq finished 1999 up 85.6 percent, the greatest single year a major index has ever recorded.

The ledger — what actually happened

Measure Close Change Marginalia
S&P 500 1,469.25 +4.78 · +0.33% the highest close in the index's history — unrevisited until 2007
Dow Jones 11,497.12 +0.4% record close; +25.2% for the year
The Nasdaq's 1999 +85.6% the greatest single year a major index has ever had
Y2K nothing the world's earlier midnight rolled in clean while New York traded

Sources

  1. CNN Money, December 31, 1999 — Wall Street on Y2K watch — https://money.cnn.com/1999/12/31/markets/stockswatch/
  2. CBS News — Stocks Party Like It's 1999 — https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stocks-party-like-its-1999/
  3. Public year-end record — S&P 500 1999 close 1,469.25 (+19.5%)