Which global health crisis triggered the sharp worldwide stock-market crash of March 2020?

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the sharp worldwide stock-market crash of March 2020.

As COVID-19 spread internationally, governments introduced travel restrictions, lockdowns, and other measures that disrupted production, employment, tourism, and trade. Investors rapidly revised expectations for corporate earnings and economic growth. A separate oil-price dispute between Saudi Arabia and Russia added to market stress in early March.

Major indexes fell at extraordinary speed. The S&P 500 entered a bear market on March 12, 2020, and trading halts known as circuit breakers were triggered several times. Central banks and governments responded with interest-rate cuts, asset purchases, emergency lending, and fiscal support. The market crash was therefore connected to both the public-health emergency and the economic shock created by efforts to contain it. The crisis was global, although individual countries and sectors experienced different timing and severity.