Trading Halted For Second Time This Week As Stock Market Sell-Off Intensifies


Topline: The stock market continued to plummet on Thursday, with early trading halted for a second time this week after President Trump’s Wednesday evening speech failed to ease concerns over the economic slowdown from the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak.

  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down over 2,000 points, or 8.7%, on Thursday morning, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both dropped almost 8%.
  • Steep losses in early trading triggered the market’s circuit breaker mechanism, which halts trading for 15 minutes to prevent stocks from free-falling and gives investors a chance to reassess. Stocks continued to plunge, however, even after the halt in trading.
  • All three major indexes have now entered bear market territory, having fallen more than 20% from last month’s highs—and officially ending the longest-running bull market in U.S. history.
  • Markets weren’t reassured by President Donald Trump’s speech on Wednesday evening, in which he addressed the nation about his administration’s response to the outbreak—but many details remain unclear, and a large financial stimulus package doesn’t look likely anytime soon.
  • In an attempt to mitigate the spread of the pandemic, Trump announced a 30-day ban on travelers coming to the U.S. from Europe, causing stock futures to plunge overnight and hit the 5% limit-down level.
  • In his speech, Trump also announced other financial stimulus measures that he would look at, including legislative action to provide payroll tax relief as well as instructing the Small Business Administration to “provide capital and liquidity” to small businesses.

Tangent: Shares in Europe and Asia also plunged sharply into the red, deepening weeks of turmoil across the world’s stock markets as the economic fallout from coronavirus continues.

Big numbers: Travel stocks continued to get decimated, as more countries around the world start to go on lockdown and global tourism declines sharply due to the coronavirus. Airline stocks such as American, Delta and United all fell more than 12% on Thursday morning, while cruise operators like Carnival and Royal Caribbean both lost over 20%.

What to watch for: Economist Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, told CNBC on Thursday that “we are going into a global recession.” He predicts that stocks will fall by as much as 30% from last month’s highs as global economies will plunge into coronavirus-driven recessions.

Crucial quote: “Markets are cratering in Europe and the U.S. while Asia was a sea of red too,” says Vital Knowledge founder Adam Crisafulli. “It isn’t so much anything that occurred in the last 12-18 hours but rather what didn’t, as (misplaced) hopes for Trump’s Wednesday evening Oval Office address were thoroughly disappointed.”

Crucial statistics: There are now more than 1,300 reported cases in the U.S. and at least 38 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide cases now amount to almost 128,000 infected and more than 4,700 dead.

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