The Russell 2000 Index was dropping 2.1% to 2,195.78 in morning trading Tuesday, to put the small-capitalization stocks tracker in danger of its first official correction since the COVID-19-induced bear market of early 2020. Many on Wall Street define a correction as a decline of at least 10% to up to 20% from a significant closing high; a bear market is a decline of 20% or more. The index has currently lost 10.1% since the Nov. 8 record close of 2,442.74, while a correction would become official with a close at or below 2,198.46. The last correction for the index occurred on Feb. 27, 2020, when the index tumbled 3.5% to close 12.2% below the 17-month closing high of 1,705.21 on Jan. 16, 2020. The decline eventually developed into a bear market, as it fell as much as 41.9% from its Jan. 16 close to a four-year closing low of 991.16 on March 18, 2020. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 was down 1.5% on Tuesday and was 2.6% below its Nov. 18 record close of 4,704.54 and the Nasdaq Composite was losing 1.6% and was 3.2% below its Nov. 19 record of 16,057.44.
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