--- title: If You'd Bought Stocks in March 2020, You Would Have Doubled Your Money by Now description: If you invested in the stocks when COVID-19 toppled the markets in March 2020, you'd have twice as much in your investment portfolio now. authors: - name: Mallika Mitra role: Contributing Editor url: https://money.com/author/mallika-mitra/ bio: Mallika Mitra is a contributing editor for Money, based in Chicago. She has covered investing and retirement for seven years and her work has appeared in CNBC, Bloomberg, Kiplinger, AARP, Barron’s, Bankrate, The Daily Upside, ETF.com, The Bond Buyer, PLANADVISER, PLANSPONSOR and Investopedia. education: Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY Kalamazoo College at_money_since: 2020 articles: 395 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - CNBC - Bloomberg - Kiplinger - Barron's - Bankrate - WGN-TV - CBS News Radio - This Morning With Gordon Deal - Everyone's Talkin' Money social: - https://twitter.com/mitra_mallika - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallika-mitra-4577a386/ published: '2021-08-17T15:27:04.000Z' modified: '2024-01-10T14:13:45.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - News word_count: 340 canonical: https://money.com/stock-market-doubled-pandemic-low/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Chart of rising stocks with a dollar sign rocket ascending upwards](https://img.money.com/2021/08/News-Rising-Pandemic-Stocks.jpg) If you had invested in stocks when the market crashed in March 2020, you could have doubled your money by now. At the market close on Monday, the [S&P 500](https://money.com/how-to-diversify-your-stock-portfolio/), a benchmark commonly used to measure the broader stock market, was up 100% compared to its pandemic low on March 23, 2020. That's the fastest a bull market has doubled from a bottom since World War II, according to an analysis from [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/sp-500-doubles-from-its-pandemic-bottom-marking-the-fastest-bull-market-rally-since-wwii.html). To reach this milestone, bull markets take an average of more than 1,000 trading days, CNBC found. This time, the S&P 500 did it in just 354 trading days. The last year has seen a [surge in interest around investing](https://money.com/day-trading-risk-betterment-survey/) as COVID-19 restrictions kept us at home and zero-commission trading apps like [Robinhood](https://money.com/how-to-use-robinhood-beginners/) made investing accessible to stock market newbies. Stimulus checks, loans to small businesses and near-zero interest rates provided hope for a speedy economic recovery. And tech giants like Apple, Facebook and Netflix benefited from stay-at-home orders, leading much of the market's rally. If you're kicking yourself for not investing a large chunk of your money when the pandemic hit the U.S. and markets tumbled, you're probably not alone. Investors pulled $326 billion out of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in March of 2020 — more than triple the fund outflows seen in the previous monthly record, October 2008 — according to [Morningstar](https://www.morningstar.com/articles/978165/long-term-fund-outflows-amid-volatility-triple-08-figures). Keeping your [cash on the sidelines](https://money.com/cash-on-sidelines-coronavirus/) can cause you a big financial blow. If you missed the market’s top 10 best days over the last 20 years, your overall return was cut in more than half, according to J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s 2021 [guide to retirement](https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/adv/insights/retirement-insights/guide-to-retirement/). The return on a $10,000 investment would have been $42,231 if you were fully invested, but drops to $19,347 if you missed those key 10 days. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/stock-market-doubled-pandemic-low/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Stock Market", "item": "https://money.com/stock-market/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "If You'd Bought Stocks in March 2020, You Would Have Doubled Your Money by Now" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/stock-market-doubled-pandemic-low/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/stock-market-doubled-pandemic-low/", "name": "If You'd Bought Stocks in March 2020, You Would Have Doubled Your Money by Now", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2021-08-17T15:27:04.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/stock-market-doubled-pandemic-low/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/stock-market-doubled-pandemic-low/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-01-10T14:13:45.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "If You'd Bought Stocks in March 2020, You Would Have Doubled Your Money by Now", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2021/08/News-Rising-Pandemic-Stocks.jpg", "width": 2419, "height": 1613, "caption": "News-Rising-Pandemic-Stocks" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mallika Mitra", "url": "https://money.com/author/mallika-mitra/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/mallika-mitra/#author", "description": "Mallika Mitra is a contributing editor for Money, based in Chicago. She has covered investing and retirement for seven years and her work has appeared in CNBC, Bloomberg, Kiplinger, AARP, Barron’s, Bankrate, The Daily Upside, ETF.com, The Bond Buyer, PLANADVISER, PLANSPONSOR and Investopedia.\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2020/05/Headshot.png?w=640&h=640&crop=1", "email": "mallikaamitra@gmail.com", "jobTitle": "Contributing Editor", "alumniOf": "Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY Kalamazoo College", "subjectOf": [ { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://cnbc.com", "name": "CNBC" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://bloomberg.com", "name": "Bloomberg" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://kiplinger.com", "name": "Kiplinger" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://barrons.com", "name": "Barron's" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://bankrate.com", "name": "Bankrate" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://wgntv.com/midday-news/your-money-matters-why-is-crypto-so-popular/", "name": "WGN-TV" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wall-street-journal-travel-editor-scott-mccartney/id1500053390?i=1000505352440", "name": "CBS News Radio" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://thismorningwithgordondeal.com/b/Lots-of-People-Think-NFTs-Are-Cryptocurrency-and-Theyre-Wrong/306379835851553325.html", "name": "This Morning With Gordon Deal" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-invest-in-a-recession/id957163760?i=1000596422109", "name": "Everyone's Talkin' Money" } ], "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/mitra_mallika", "https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallika-mitra-4577a386/" ], "worksFor": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2021-08-17T15:27:04.000Z", "description": "If you invested in the stocks when COVID-19 toppled the markets in March 2020, you'd have twice as much in your investment portfolio now.", "abstract": "If you invested in the stocks when COVID-19 toppled the markets in March 2020, you'd have twice as much in your investment portfolio now.", "@id": "https://money.com/stock-market-doubled-pandemic-low/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-01-10T14:13:45.000Z", "wordCount": 340, "keywords": [ "News" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Political economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Stock market", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "COVID-19", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19" ] } ] } ] } ```