At the close on Wednesday (12/1), the small-cap Russell 2,000 had fallen 12.1% from its recent high on November 8th, leaving the index in “correction” territory. A market “correction” is a drop of 10%+ that was preceded by a rally of at least 10% on a closing basis. This correction for the Russell 2,000 is its 58th since data for the index begins in 1978. Below is a table showing prior corrections for the Russell. The average correction sees the index fall 18.35%, which is just shy of the 20% threshold for a “bear market”. The median correction is a little smaller at -15.4%. In terms of length, the average Russell correction has lasted 73 days, while the median is 62 days. For the current Russell 2,000 correction to reach average levels, it would need to fall another 7% from here, and it would come to an end on January 20th, 2022.

In terms of extremes, the biggest correction that the Russell 2,000 has ever experienced was the 41.9% decline seen during the initial COVID Crash from 1/16/20 to 3/18/20. The longest correction lasted 397 days from 6/24/83 to 7/25/84.In terms of the shortest correction, there were two that lasted 3 days. One of those came during the Financial Crisis while the other happened last June.