Stats › Volatility and VIX › Circuit breakers
US circuit breakers have fired on five days since 1997
| Date | Level | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Oct 1997 | Two halts | Older Dow points based rules. Trading halted twice and the market closed early. |
| 09 Mar 2020 | Level 1 | Opening minutes, COVID selloff and the oil price war |
| 12 Mar 2020 | Level 1 | Second trigger in four days |
| 16 Mar 2020 | Level 1 | The session that produced the record VIX close of 82.69 |
| 18 Mar 2020 | Level 1 | Fourth and most recent trigger |
Source: NYSE Market-Wide Circuit Breaker Working Group report. All four 2020 triggers were Level 1.
US circuit breakers halt all equity trading when the S&P 500 falls 7%, 13% or 20% from the previous close. They have fired on five days in nearly thirty years, four of them in March 2020. The 20% level has never been reached.
5Days ever triggered
7%First halt threshold
0Times Level 3 has fired
20.47%S&P 500 on 19 Oct 1987
Members only
The rest of this page is for members
Below this point there are 6 sections, 1 chart and 2 named sources, roughly 700 words of it. Every figure carries the source it came from and the date the data is from.
You can keep browsing every statistic in the library for free. The intro and the summary are always open.