A 10% drop for stocks is scary, but it's not that rare
ABC News
The worries rocking Wall Street about interest rates, inflation and now Ukraine have sent the S&P 500 tumbling by 10% from its recent high
NEW YORK -- The worries rocking Wall Street about interest rates, inflation and now Ukraine have sent the S&P 500 index — the most widely followed measure of the U.S. stock market — tumbling more than 10% from its record.
It's a big enough fall that Wall Street has a name for it: a “correction.” Such drops occur regularly, and market pros tend to see them as potentially healthy setbacks that can clear out unjustified market exuberance or excessive risk-taking.
But they're frightening in the moment, particularly for every new generation of investors that gets into the market at a time when it seems like stocks only go up. The S&P 500 more than doubled between late March 2020 and early January, when it set its last all-time high.
Taking a little froth out of the market is one thing. The larger fear, which always accompanies a correction, is that a correction could augur a "bear market," which is what Wall Street calls a drop of at least 20%.
