The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 12.9% on Monday, 16 March 2020, during the COVID-19 stock-market crash.
The decline followed rapid global spread of COVID-19, escalating restrictions on travel and business, and severe uncertainty about economic activity. It also came after an oil-price shock and weeks of increasingly volatile trading.
Trading was halted temporarily by circuit breakers as indexes fell through preset thresholds. The Federal Reserve and other central banks announced emergency measures, while governments introduced fiscal support and programs intended to protect households, companies, and financial markets.
The 2020 crash was unusually fast. U.S. stocks entered a bear market in March, but prices later rebounded strongly as policy support expanded, vaccines were developed, and investors anticipated economic reopening. The market’s rapid recovery does not erase the scale of the initial disruption.