The stock market’s latest plunge on Wednesday did more than wipe out billions of dollars in investor equity. It also nearly obliterated President Donald Trump’s favorite measure of his economic success.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average's decline below 20,000 almost completely erased all of the iconic index's previous gains since Trump's inauguration, jeopardizing a key talking point for his reelection campaign. Earlier in the day, the S&P 500 fell by more than 7 percent, triggering a marketwide trading halt.


Since his 2016 victory, Trump has tweeted dozens of times about the record stock gains under his watch, posting as recently as Feb. 19 that it was the “Highest Stock Market In History, By Far!” He has repeatedly suggested that Americans check their 401(k)s to tote up their gains, and argued that the markets would have crashed had Hillary Clinton defeated him.