S&P 500 · March 13, 2020

The national emergency declaration

+9.29%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The COVID crash

near the end of it · 2020-02-19 → 2020-03-23, -33.92% over the whole period

What happened that day?

On 13 March 2020 the S&P 500 rose 9.29% in a single day
That week alternated between crashes and jumps every other session. The day before had fallen enough to trigger a circuit breaker — the second time that week
On this day the US declared a national emergency and said it would mobilise federal funds and powers
Plans for expanded testing and private-sector cooperation came with it, signalling that something was being done
The actual low, though, was ten days later on 23 March. This rise was one bounce among several
That is why big up-days cluster in crashes — not because direction has been found, but because everything is swinging harder

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.