The S&P 500 recorded its largest one-day percentage loss of the 2020 crash on 16 March 2020.
The index fell 12.0% that day, as investors reacted to the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic, travel restrictions, business closures, and growing expectations of a global recession. The decline followed another exceptionally turbulent week in which US markets repeatedly triggered circuit breakers.
The 16 March fall was larger than the S&P 500’s declines on 9 March and 12 March. It was also the index’s steepest single-day percentage drop since Black Monday in 1987, although the market’s 2020 decline and recovery unfolded in a very different economic setting.
The S&P 500 reached its 2020 closing low on 23 March, one week after the record one-day percentage fall. Extraordinary monetary and fiscal support, along with changing expectations about the pandemic, helped fuel a powerful rebound afterward.