The
dot-com bubble (also referred to as the
dot-com boom, the
Internet bubble, the
dot-com collapse, and the
information technology bubble) was a historic
speculative bubble covering roughly 1997–2000 (with a climax on March 10, 2000, with the
NASDAQ peaking at 5,132.52 in
intraday trading before closing at 5,048.62) during which
stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the
Internet sector and related fields. While the latter part was a
boom and bust cycle, the
Internet boom is sometimes meant to refer to the steady commercial growth of the Internet with the advent of the
World Wide Web, as exemplified by the first release of the
Mosaic web browser in 1993, and continuing through the 1990s.