The Toronto Stock Exchange and Dow Jones Industrial Average closed in a bear market Wednesday, after both indices dropped 20 per cent from their most recent February peaks.

Toronto-Dominion Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and Enbridge Inc. have been the biggest drags on the TSX over that time period, collectively shaving a little more than 600 points off the index.

A bear market is defined as a 20 per cent decline from previous highs. The most recent bull market lasted 11 years, the longest such period of economic expansion in history.  

Canadian and U.S. stocks fell deeper in the red throughout Wednesday afternoon following the World Health Organization’s official declaration that COVID-19 is a pandemic.

Investor fears intensified as they weighed government stimulus measures and global central bank reactions against their ability to mitigate the economic impact of the virus.

Todd Sohn, a technical analyst with Strategas Securities, told BNN Bloomberg in an interview that finding the bottom of the market is a process that could take several months to stabilize.

“It usually takes some time after the initial shock and decline before you get some sort of durable bounce and a sustained rally higher. So, I think we need to stay patient here as these thresholds keep getting cut through here in the coming weeks,” he said.

“I’d be reluctant to say this is going to be a prolonged two-year type of bear market. We’ve had some very brisk bear markets, especially when you look back to the 1950s, but we always go back to say the bottoming process can take a month or two if we’re going off the 1998, 2011 examples. So more to go, more patience for us until this is all clear, but we don’t want to be too extreme in saying the equity market is done for the next couple of years.”