March Madness isn’t just for college basketball fans. That phrase is also an apt description of the volatility on Wall Street, and this March is no different.
Just look at what stocks have done so far this month. It began with worries about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the spike in oil and gas prices. The Dow plunged nearly 800 points on March 7 as energy prices surged.
And if that weren’t enough, the market was girding itself for the Federal Reserve’s first rate hike since late 2018. The Dow was down nearly 4% for the month as of March 8.
The Great Recession (aka the 2008 Global Financial Crisis) peaked in March 2009. Stocks bottomed that month, after a nearly 60% decline from a high in October 2007, putting an end to a brutal bear market.
