Key moments that shook – then fixed – the stock market in 2020

Here are some of the key moments in a year that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
+ 0.65%
end with an annual gain of around 7%, despite plunging into a bear market eight months ago. The S&P 500 SPX index,
+ 0.64%
returned nearly 16% in 2020, while the Nasdaq COMP Composite Index,
+ 0.14%
rose 43.4% and the Russell 2000 RUT Small Cap Index,
-0.26%
climbed 19% over the year.

• January 2 marked the first day of trading in 2020 and the Dow booked a 330 point hike, seemingly oblivious as the Chinese central bank increased stimulus measures amid the viral outbreak that has been reported for the first time in Wuhan and was just a glimpse of what it was to become. the globe.

• Dow records a closing high on February 12. The S&P 500 ends at an all time high on February 19.

• On February 28, the Dow Jones S&P 500 suffered the worst weekly decline since 2008, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank was “closely monitoring” the spread of the coronavirus.

• On March 3, the Fed announced a cut rate of half a percentage point half an hour after the start of the trading session, saying that if the fundamentals of the economy remain strong, the “coronavirus poses evolutionary risks for economic activity ”. (A number of other central banks around the world have also cut rates)

• On March 11, the Dow ended in bearish territory for the first time in more than a decade, after the World Health Organization designated the global spread of COVID-19 as a pandemic.

• On March 12, the Dow Jones marks its worst day since the crash of 1987, as virus recession risks increase (Market volatility has started triggering downward limiting trades to dampen sales.)

• On March 15, the Fed cuts interest rates by one percentage point on a Sunday night to almost 0% and begins rolling out a number of programs to support failing credit markets and support the economy.

• On March 23, the stock market hit its lowest point in the pandemic era.

• On March 26, investors take comfort in the overnight passing of a historic $ 2 trillion economic stimulus effort on the same day a report showed a record 3.28 million Americans asked for unemployment benefits

• On April 3, stocks ended lower after the worst jobs report in 11 years, which showed 701,000 Americans lost their jobs in March.

• April 29 marks the largest drop in US gross domestic product since 2008. GDP, the official dashboard of economic growth, fell at an annualized rate of 4.8%.

• May 25: George Floyd’s death sparks social unrest around the world.

• The National Bureau of Economic Research, or NBER, said in June that a 128-month expansion – the longest dating to 1854 – stopped in February, triggering a recession.

• June 5: Investors applaud a May jobs report that unexpectedly showed a 2.5 million increase in non-farm payrolls and a drop in the unemployment rate. The Dow Jones rose nearly 830 points, or 0.3%, while the S&P 500 rose 2.6% and the Nasdaq Composite hit an intraday high.

• June 16: Data shows US retail sales jumped 17.7% in May as the economy began to reopen and work its way out of what would likely have been the shortest recession and deepest in American history.

• November 9: Trump’s vaccine czar says first vaccine should be submitted for emergency clearance around Thanksgiving

• November 15: Trump first acknowledges President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 election – then says he ‘concedes nothing’, repeating baseless claim of ‘rigged’ vote

• November 17: Moderna Inc. said its COVID-19 vaccine candidate achieved its primary goal during initial analysis of data from a Phase 3 trial, showing 94.5% efficacy

• December 3: UK clears COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.

• December 11: The FDA grants emergency authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

• December 18: FDA clears Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Quotes of the year:

“The coronavirus outbreak will be temporary and will not change the long-term improvement in China’s economy,” PBOC vice-governor Pan Gongsheng said at a press briefing in February.

“I’m telling investors to hang on because this is the opportunity,” Diane Jaffee, senior portfolio manager at TCW, told MarketWatch at the end of February.

“Monetary policy is an unlikely cure for the coronavirus,” said Mike LaBella, head of investment strategy at QS Investors, a subsidiary of Legg Mason, in a March statement as the Fed made its first cut. emergency rate in response to the coronavirus outbreak, eight days before the WHO declared the new strain of coronavirus pandemic.