S&P 500 · March 23, 2020
The COVID crash
-33.92%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
23 trading days · 2020-02-19 → 2020-03-23
back to the old high on 2020-08-18
What happened that day?
- From the 19 February 2020 peak to the 23 March low, down 33.92% — and it took only 23 trading days
- COVID-19 spread beyond China, borders and shops closed, and whole industries went to zero revenue at once
- Airlines, hotels and restaurants — anything that needs people in a room — took the direct hit
- The real problem was that nobody knew how long it would last. Without a duration you cannot value a company, so everyone sold first
- The Fed cut to zero and promised unlimited bond buying, Congress passed a huge relief package, and the market bottomed in late March
- The recovery was as fast as the fall — back to the old high on 18 August, a round trip of five months
Sources
Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is written from the sources listed above.