FILE – American flags hang outside of the New York Stock Exchange, in this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, file photo. Stocks are starting higher on Wall Street with an assist from technology companies, which have seen big swings in recent days. The S&P 500 index was up 0.7% in the early going Thursday, March 11, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 1.7%. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)
A deadly new virus was scary enough, but it became even more frightening when it threatened to vaporize Americans’ retirement accounts.
A year ago this month, the stock market seemed to suddenly realize that the novel coronavirus would devastate the global economy. The Dow Jones industrial average’s 2,000-point drop on March 9, 2020, moved stocks into bear-market territory, and the bears mauled investors with a record 2,997-point loss a week later.
As steep as the selloff was, though, it would prove to be the shortest bear market on record. Stocks hit bottom on March 23, having lost one-third of their value in a little over a month.
If you succumbed to stomach acid and abandoned stocks back then, perhaps remembering previous bear markets that lasted more than a year, you’d soon be filled with seller’s regret. The broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 average climbed back into record territory by August and is now up more than 75% from its pandemic-driven low.
“The biggest lesson is you can’t predict which way the market is going to turn,” said Richard Ryffel, director of wealth management at Clayton-based First Bank. “Market timing is not a good idea.”
