Which 2020 crash saw global stock markets plunge as the COVID-19 pandemic triggered lockdowns and economic fears?

The 2020 crash in which global stock markets plunged amid pandemic lockdowns is called the COVID-19 market crash.

As COVID-19 spread internationally, governments imposed travel restrictions, business closures, and stay-at-home measures. Investors rapidly repriced companies, commodities, and government bonds as they assessed an unprecedented interruption to economic activity.

The S&P 500 entered a bear market on March 12, 2020, and reached its pandemic-era closing low on March 23. Central banks and governments responded with large monetary, fiscal, and emergency-lending programs.

The crash was unusually rapid, but markets later recovered as policy support expanded, vaccines were developed, and economic activity reopened. It is sometimes conflated with the 2020 oil-price collapse, which was related to the broader shock but was a separate market event.