The Dow Jones entered a bear market during March 2020, its fastest bear-market entry ever.
The 2020 stock-market crash was driven by the global spread of COVID-19, lockdowns, travel restrictions, collapsing economic forecasts, and an oil-price dispute between Saudi Arabia and Russia. The Dow’s closing high was 29,551.42 on February 12, 2020, and it entered bear-market territory on March 11 after a rapid sequence of losses.
On March 16, the Dow fell 2,997 points, or 12.9 percent, its largest one-day point decline at that time. The index reached a closing low of 18,591.93 on March 23. Massive fiscal support, central-bank intervention, and hopes for vaccines helped markets rebound later in the year.
A bear market generally means a decline of at least 20 percent from a recent closing high. The pandemic crash was unusually abrupt: its fall occurred in weeks, rather than over the many months associated with some earlier crashes.