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The stock market is on track to start the second quarter nearly the same way it ended March, with bruising losses.
A resumption of declines to start the first trading day in April, or the second quarter, for already-battered equity gauges, could result in the worst start to a quarter for stock-market bulls in decades.
For the broad-market S&P 500 index, a decline of at least 3.69% would represent the index’s worst first day of any quarter on record, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The index was created in 1957, to put things into perspective.
| Rank/Worst | S&P 500 % change | Date |
| 1 | -3.69 | Jan. 2, 1932 |
| 2 | -3.01 | Oct. 1, 1998 |
| 3 | -2,97 | Oct. 1, 1934 |
| 4 | -2.85% | Oct. 3, 2011 |
| 5 | -2.80 | Jan. 2, 2001 |
| Source: Dow Jones Market Data |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, was on pace for its worst start to the first three months in a calendar year in its 124-year history if it manages to exceed a 4.32% decline put in to start the third quarter of 1896.
| Rank/Worst | DJIA % change | Dates |
| 1 | -4.32 | July 1, 1896 |
| 2 | -4.21 | Jan. 2, 1932 |
| 3 | -3.52 | Jan. 2, 1904 |
| 4 | -2.82 | April 1, 1898 |
| 5 | -2.74 | April 1, 1929 |
| Source: Dow Jones Market Data |
At last check, the Dow DJIA, -4.44% on Wednesday was trading 1,008 points, or 4.6%, lower to 20,904, the S&P 500 SPX, -4.41% was sliding 125 points, or 4.8%, to 2,460, while The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -4.41% headed 362 points, or 4.7%, lower to 7,338.
Stocks ended lower on Tuesday, capping a quarter that saw stocks tumble from February records into a bear market at record speed.
The first quarter marked the worst quarterly loss for the Dow since the fourth quarter of 1987, and the three-month skid also represented the steepest first-quarter drop, from January through the end of March, in the index’s history, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Read: Here’s how the stock market tends to perform after brutal quarters
Wednesday’s action comes as U.S. investors are coming to grips with the prospect of a long haul for the economy and the markets amid a pandemic that has been contracted by more than 800,000 people world-wide. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump warned that a “very, very painful” two weeks lie ahead for the country in face of a rapidly spreading COVID-19 epidemic, which originated in December in Wuhan, China and has brought much of the world to a screeching halt to slow the spread of the deadly pathogen.
See: Dow faces crucial April test as coronavirus pandemic brings ‘blizzard of bad news’
Michael Destefano contributed to this article
