Dow’s plunge into a bear market from a recent high is fastest since Great Depression
by Mark DeCambre
Market Watch
It’s the end of a bullish era for the stock market and the beginning of a new phase of bearishness, after a sharp plunge for risk assets on Wednesday pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average into bear-market territory for the first time in more than a decade.
U.S. equity indexes on Wednesday mostly resumed a downtrend that saw all three major U.S. equity gauges touch bear-market territory, commonly defined as a decline of at least 20% from a recent peak. The declines deepened after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19, the infectious disease that was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December, a pandemic.