The S&P 500 wipes out all gains made in 2019 - one of its best years since the financial crisis

Ben Winck

Mar 17, 2020, 01:06 IST

The S&P 500 wipes out all gains made in 2019 - one of its best years since the financial crisis

Spencer Platt/Getty

The S&P 500 took less than four weeks to wipe out all gains made in 2019, Bloomberg first reported.
Monday's market tumble saw the index slide as much as 11% as investors fled coronavirus' economic risks.
Last year the S&P 500 jumped 29%, notching the second-best annual gain in its 11-year bull run.
The index's dive arrives as the nation's biggest banks anticipate near-term recession and estimate further declines for the troubled stock market.
Watch the S&P 500 update live here.

The first week of the coronavirus sell-off saw the S&P 500 wipe out its year-to-date gains. The second posted a failed attempt at bouncing back. The third week featured the end of the 11-year bull market.

Monday's dismal session pushed the intense selling into its fourth calendar week and saw the index erase all gains made in 2019.

Investors sprinted for the exits Monday as coronavirus fears became a new reality around the US. The S&P 500 tanked as much as 11% after triggering a 15-minute trading halt minutes after the open. Markets shrugged off the Federal Reserve's emergency rate cut and instead focused on the virus-related closures taking place across the country.

The benchmark index pared some losses through the day but remains well below its closing level on December 31, 2018. At its intraday low of 2,402, the S&P 500 sat below its New Year levels from 2019 and 2018.

Bloomberg first reported on the S&P 500 erasing all 2019 gains.

Eliminating all gains made in 2019 wasn't supposed to be so easy. The index soared nearly 29% through the year on earnings wins and surging buyback activity, notching the second-best yearly performance of the post-recession bull run.

What initially seemed like another winning year for equities has quickly devolved into the first bear market in more than a decade and a precursor to the US's next recession. Both JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs expect the US economy to slip into contraction through the first half of the year.

Analysts at the latter firm have also suggested the coronavirus sell-off could push the S&P 500 as low as 2,000 by the middle of the year, a 41% decline from its mid-February peak.

The S&P 500 sat at 2,490.63 as of 3 p.m. ET Monday, down 24% year-to-date.

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