The Federal Reserve had already cut its target range to 1.00%–1.25% earlier in the month. Then it moved almost daily: Date. What the Fed announced. Sunday 15 March. Target range cut to 0%–0.25%, purchases of at least $500 billion of Treasuries and $200 billion of mortgage-backed securities, and dollar swap lines with the central banks of Canada, England, Japan, the eurozone and Switzerland made 25 basis points cheaper, plus a new 84-day maturity where weekly operations were already held. Thursday 19 March. New swap lines with nine more central banks: up to $60 billion each for Australia, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore and Sweden, and $30 billion each for Denmark, Norway and New Zealand. Friday 20 March. The 7-day dollar operations of those central banks to run daily instead of weekly, from 23 March. Monday 23 March. Purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities "in the amounts needed to support smooth market functioning", in place of the earlier minimums. Tuesday 31 March. A repo facility, a short-term loan backed by bonds, that lets foreign central banks exchange the Treasuries they hold at the Fed for dollars, as "an alternative temporary source of U.S. dollars other than sales of securities in the open market". In a swap line, as the Fed describes it, the other central bank sells its own currency to the Fed for dollars, agrees to buy it back on a set date at the same exchange rate, and lends those dollars on to institutions at home. Our explainer on quantitative easing covers the bond purchases.

What was the 2020 dash for cash?

Q: What can a trader take from it?

In March 2020 the dollar beat the other havens. That is the left side of the dollar smile at its most extreme: from 9 March the yen and the franc fell with everything else. Correlations you rely on can break. Treasuries and the yen usually rise in a scare. In March 2020 both were sold, which is why risk-off is not a single trade. A market can move a lot and still lack depth. On 15 March, the day before the VIX's record close, the Fed announced Treasury purchases "to support the smooth functioning" of the deepest bond market in the world. Our comparison of volatility, liquidity and volume explains why a busy market is not always a deep one. This piece does not say what the next panic would look like. 2020 is one case, with its own trigger and its own response, not a rule. Exchange rates are the Fed's noon New York buying rates (H.10: DEXMXUS, DEXUSAL, DEXUSUK, DEXUSNZ, DEXJPUS, DEXCAUS, DEXUSEU, DEXSZUS); the broad index of the dollar is DTWEXBGS, the 10-year yield DGS10, the VIX VIXCLS, the swap lines SWPT (weekly, Wednesday levels) and the target range DFEDTARU and DFEDTARL, all via Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). The Fed's measures and quotes are from its press releases of 15, 19, 20, 23 and 31 March 2020, and the description of a swap line from its page on central bank swap lines. The name appears, among other places, in the title of a Bank of England speech by Anil Kashyap, "The dash for cash and the liquidity multiplier: Lessons from March 2020", of 17 November 2020.

In March 2020 even Treasuries and the yen fell as investors scrambled for dollars, and the Fed's broad dollar index rose 7.6% in two weeks. What was the dash for cash?

In short

In March 2020, as Covid-19 spread and stock markets crashed, investors sold almost everything to get hold of dollars, including the assets they usually buy in a panic: from 9 to 23 March the Fed's broad dollar index rose 7.6%.
Every major currency fell against the dollar, and so did the Mexican peso, which lost 16.7% at its weakest; the yen and the Swiss franc, which had risen as havens in the weeks before, lost 8.0% and 5.8%.
Even Treasuries were sold: the 10-year yield rose from 0.54% on 9 March to 1.18% on 18 March. When everyone needs cash at once, the safest thing to sell is also the easiest one.
The Fed cut rates to 0%–0.25% on 15 March and, from 19 March, extended its dollar swap lines to nine more central banks; the broad dollar index peaked on 23 March at 126.13, a high not passed until September 2022, and these figures cannot tell which measure turned it.

OCT/25/2026 · 6 min readBy the ForexCommand team · Methodology · Standards

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In March 2020, as Covid-19 was spreading and stock markets crashed, investors sold almost everything to get hold of dollars, including the assets they usually buy in a panic. From 9 to 23 March the Federal Reserve's broad index of the dollar rose 7.6%. The yen and the Swiss franc fell against it, and by 18 March the 10-year US Treasury yield had risen from 0.54% to 1.18%, which means even Treasuries were being sold. It is known as the dash for cash, the name in the title of a Bank of England speech that November.

What did the market do?

On 16 March the VIX, the index of expected volatility in US stocks, closed at 82.69, its highest close since the series began in 1990 and above the 80.86 of November 2008. Our explainer on the VIX covers what it measures. Against the dollar, every major currency fell, and so did the Mexican peso:

Currency	9 March 2020	Weakest point (to 30 April)	Value lost against the dollar
Mexican peso	20.926 per dollar	25.132 (24 March)	16.7%
Australian dollar	$0.6654	$0.5755 (23 March)	13.5%
British pound	$1.3100	$1.1492 (23 March)	12.3%
New Zealand dollar	$0.6409	$0.5669 (23 March)	11.5%
Japanese yen	102.52 per dollar	111.44 (24 March)	8.0%
Canadian dollar	1.3527 per dollar	1.4539 (23 March)	7.0%
Euro	$1.1420	$1.0682 (20 March)	6.5%
Swiss franc	0.9296 per dollar	0.9866 (20 March)	5.8%

The yen and the franc are on that list too. They had risen as havens in the weeks before: on 19 February the dollar bought 111.17 yen and 0.9839 francs, against 102.52 and 0.9296 on 9 March. Our guide to safe havens explains that havens are a spectrum and that the yen and the franc sometimes rise even harder than the dollar. From 9 March the spectrum showed its other end: only the dollar was wanted.

Why would anyone sell Treasuries in a panic?

In a normal scare, investors buy US Treasuries and their yields fall. This time the 10-year yield fell to 0.54% on 9 March and then climbed to 1.18% by 18 March, in the middle of the crash. When everyone needs cash at once, the safest thing to sell is also the easiest one, and Treasuries are the deepest bond market in the world.

The Fed described the problem in its own words as "strains in global U.S. dollar funding markets". Today the dollar is on one side of about 89% of all forex trades, as our piece on the dollar's weight in forex shows, and in a crisis companies and governments everywhere need dollars to cover their dollar obligations. In March 2020 that need arrived all at once.

What did the Fed do?

The Federal Reserve had already cut its target range to 1.00%–1.25% earlier in the month. Then it moved almost daily:

Date	What the Fed announced
Sunday 15 March	Target range cut to 0%–0.25%, purchases of at least $500 billion of Treasuries and $200 billion of mortgage-backed securities, and dollar swap lines with the central banks of Canada, England, Japan, the eurozone and Switzerland made 25 basis points cheaper, plus a new 84-day maturity where weekly operations were already held
Thursday 19 March	New swap lines with nine more central banks: up to $60 billion each for Australia, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore and Sweden, and $30 billion each for Denmark, Norway and New Zealand
Friday 20 March	The 7-day dollar operations of those central banks to run daily instead of weekly, from 23 March
Monday 23 March	Purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities "in the amounts needed to support smooth market functioning", in place of the earlier minimums
Tuesday 31 March	A repo facility, a short-term loan backed by bonds, that lets foreign central banks exchange the Treasuries they hold at the Fed for dollars, as "an alternative temporary source of U.S. dollars other than sales of securities in the open market"

In a swap line, as the Fed describes it, the other central bank sells its own currency to the Fed for dollars, agrees to buy it back on a set date at the same exchange rate, and lends those dollars on to institutions at home. Our explainer on quantitative easing covers the bond purchases.

What happened next?

The broad index of the dollar peaked on 23 March, at 126.13, the highest reading in a series that starts in 2006, not passed until September 2022. Over the next three sessions it fell 2.9%. These figures cannot tell which measure turned it. The swap lines' balance went from $45 million on 18 March to $206 billion a week later and peaked at $449 billion at the end of May, still below the $583 billion of December 2008.

What can a trader take from it?

In March 2020 the dollar beat the other havens. That is the left side of the dollar smile at its most extreme: from 9 March the yen and the franc fell with everything else.
Correlations you rely on can break. Treasuries and the yen usually rise in a scare. In March 2020 both were sold, which is why risk-off is not a single trade.
A market can move a lot and still lack depth. On 15 March, the day before the VIX's record close, the Fed announced Treasury purchases "to support the smooth functioning" of the deepest bond market in the world. Our comparison of volatility, liquidity and volume explains why a busy market is not always a deep one.
This piece does not say what the next panic would look like. 2020 is one case, with its own trigger and its own response, not a rule.

Exchange rates are the Fed's noon New York buying rates (H.10: DEXMXUS, DEXUSAL, DEXUSUK, DEXUSNZ, DEXJPUS, DEXCAUS, DEXUSEU, DEXSZUS); the broad index of the dollar is DTWEXBGS, the 10-year yield DGS10, the VIX VIXCLS, the swap lines SWPT (weekly, Wednesday levels) and the target range DFEDTARU and DFEDTARL, all via Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). The Fed's measures and quotes are from its press releases of 15, 19, 20, 23 and 31 March 2020, and the description of a swap line from its page on central bank swap lines. The name appears, among other places, in the title of a Bank of England speech by Anil Kashyap, "The dash for cash and the liquidity multiplier: Lessons from March 2020", of 17 November 2020.