S&P 500 Closes Down 20% from High, Officially a Bear Market

The S&P 500 fell 151.23 points, or 3.9%, to 3749.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 876.05 points, or 2.8%, to 30516.74. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 530.80 points, or 4.7%, to 10809.23 (33% lower that the November record).

CNBC – […] U.S. stocks on Monday entered a bear market because the S&P 500 closed more than 21% below its all-time record close reached as recently as last January, S&P Global Dow Jones Indices senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt wrote.

Stocks had been flirting with a bear market for the past several weeks on an intraday basis, but had never actually closed below 3837, the level S&P Global needed to see in order to officially declare one.

S&P Global says a 20% decline in the S&P 500 on a closing basis from its previous peak is all it takes to define a bear market. Which means that this bear market is already more than five months old, since the S&P 500 all-time high came on January 3. (read more)