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The Dow Has Lost 13% In A Volatile Month

Trading ends for the day on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 20. It was the last day before the exchange switched to all-electronic trading in an effort to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Spencer Platt Getty Images
Trading ends for the day on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 20. It was the last day before the exchange switched to all-electronic trading in an effort to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Updated at 1:27 p.m. ET

The stock market has never seen a month like March. The Dow notched losses and gains of 1,000 points to as many as 3,000 points in a day in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic and its economic toll.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has recovered from recent lows, but it's still down nearly 13% this month.

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And the blue chip index is 24% below its recent peak in February. At its low on March 23, it was down a staggering 38% from the record high.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Dow was down 250 points, or 1%. The S&P 500 was down about 1.2%, and the Nasdaq inched down 0.6%.

The stock market has whipsawed throughout the month, making unheard-of moves in just a matter of hours and days. The volatility triggered several automatic, temporary trading halts on the the New York Stock Exchange.

On March 16, the Dow lost a staggering 2,997 points — the most for a single day. That 13% drop was the steepest since the Black Monday crash of October 1987.

But the market saw dramatic ups, too.

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The Dow soared 2,112 points March 24, breaking a single-day record that had been set just 11 days earlier on Friday the 13th. The index gained nearly 11.4% on March 24 — the most since 1933.

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