An ugly end to a cruel April on Friday saw the S&P 500 post its second correction — a drop of 10% from a recent peak — so far this year.
The large-cap benchmark
SPX,
-3.63%
ended a topsy-turvy week with a 3.6% fall on Friday, closing at 4,131.93, its lowest finish since May 19, 2021. That leaves it down 10.8% from its close at 4,631.60 set on March 29, which was the day it left a correction it had entered in late February.
A correction is commonly defined as a pullback of at least 10% — but not more than 20% — from a recent peak. A correction is exited after rise of at least 10% from a correction low.
The S&P 500 fell back into correction just 22 trading days after leaving the previous one, its fastest re-entry since November 2008, during the turmoil of the 2007-2009 financial crisis, when the index fell back into correction only 7 trading days after leaving one. It later fell into a bear market.
The S&P 500 previously suffered a correction on Feb. 22, when it closed at 4,304.76, down 10.25% from its early January record close. Stocks extended a slide in early March as investors reacted to Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, which sent oil prices soaring to nearly 14-year highs and stoked geopolitical anxiety.
A closing low of 4,170.70 on March 8 marked the bottom of that move.
Stocks slumped anew in volatile April trade, marked by large daily and intraday swings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-2.77%
plunged 4.9% in April, while the S&P 500 shed 8.8% and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-4.17%
tumbled 13.3%. It was the biggest monthly percentage declines since March 2020 for the Dow and S&P, and the largest for the Nasdaq since October 2008.
Read: A rough 4 months for stocks: S&P 500 books the worst start to a year since 1939. Here’s what pros say you should do now.
It was the worst April performance for the Dow and S&P 500 since 1970, and the biggest April drop for the Nasdaq since 2000.
Stocks fell as investors…
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