NEW YORK: The year 2020 was a wild one for Wall Street, book ended by the end of the longest bull market in history with the battering of equities by the COVID-19 shutdowns, and a bungee-cord rebound on hopes for economic recovery that resulted in the shortest bear market on record.
After closing at a record high on February 19, stocks suffered a month-long plummet as the coronavirus pandemic and related government lockdowns sowed panic about the damage to the economy in the United States and globally.
A 9.5 per cent plummet in the S&P 500 on March 12, the benchmark index’s biggest-one day percentage drop since the ‘Black Monday’ crash of 1987, put it down 26.7 per cent from the February high and confirmed a bear market, widely viewed as a decline of more than 20 per cent from a high.
But the slide only lasted until March 23, when the S&P bottomed. It went on to surpass its February high on August 18, marking the start of a new bull market. The 23 trading days of a bear market were the fewest ever.
The S&P closed 2020 on Thursday at a record high, as did the Dow Jones Industrial Average, with annual gains of 16.3 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively. — Reuters
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