Tag: U.S. stock market

Trump Said Market Would Tank If Biden Won — But It’s Soaring

Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump claimed multiple times that if former Vice President Joe Biden were elected to the presidency, the stock market would crash and Americans’ retirement funds would be wiped out.

But on Monday — the first day the stock market was open since Biden was declared the winner — the Dow Jones surged by nearly 1,400 points, setting a new record after AstraZeneca announced the success of its new coronavirus vaccine.

It’s proof that one of Trump’s most frequent lines of attack against Biden was demonstrably false. Continue reading.

Historic plunge in oil prices sends U.S. stocks reeling, with Dow losing nearly 600 points

NOTE: This is a free article from The Washington Post.

Washington Post logoU.S. crude prices for May delivery turned negative – a first – amid scarce demand and limited storage capacity

U.S. stocks were shaken deeply into the red Monday after oil traders desperate to unload near-term contracts for their vital commodity sold at a loss.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 592 points, 2.4 percent, to finish the day at 23,650.44. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 51 points, or 1.8 percent, to 2,823,16. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 89 points, or 1.0 percent, to 8,560.73.

Investors expect Monday’s volatility to stay in place in coming days as Wall Street heads into the thick of the earnings season, with closely watched names like Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Eli Lilly, American Express and Verizon releasing financial results this week. Continue reading.

U.S. stocks tank as bleak news mounts on health, economic fronts

Washington Post logoThe Dow slides nearly 1,000 points coming off its worst first quarter ever

Stocks descended deeper into their month-long funk Wednesday as the nation entered one of its most dire periods in memory. Coronavirus deaths are piling up, vast swaths of the population are confined to their homes, and tens of millions are hurting while the pandemic squeezes the life out of the economy.
As the nation looks for a whisper of good news, Wednesday’s sell-off suggests Wall Street is bracing for even deeper losses after finishing one of its worst quarters ever.

“We are in for shockingly bad labor market numbers in Thursday’s unemployment claims,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust. “We are in for the sharpest quarterly decline in economic activity that we have ever seen. And the recovery in the second half of the year is going to be slow, challenging and disappointing. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Continue reading.

U.S. markets wrap up worst week since the 2008 financial crisis

Washington Post logoU.S. markets wrapped up one of their messiest-ever weeks Friday, recording their worst finish since the 2008 financial crisis. The Standard & Poor’s 500 tumbled 15 percent from where it began Monday, with stocks wrenched all week in hourly spasms as investors tried to fathom where the coronavirus will eventually leave the U.S. economy.

The craziness ran right up to the closing bell, with the S&P and the Dow Jones industrial average plunging more than 3 percent minutes after the World Health Organization warned that global health systems were “collapsing” under the strain of the pandemic.

Wall Street’s meltdown over the past month has erased all of the stock market gains since President Trump entered the White House. On Feb. 12, the Dow peaked at 29,551.42 — a 49 percent jump from its close on Trump’s Inauguration Day in January 2017. But within a span of weeks it has lost a third of its value as the coronavirus crisis has played out. On Friday, it lost an additional 913.21 points, roughly 4.6 percent, to close at 19,173.98. Continue reading.  Free article.

U.S. stock market suffers worst crash since 1987, as Americans wake up to a new normal of life

Washington Post logoThursday’s market plunge marked the second time in one week that a temporary, 15-minute halt to trading was triggered to stop a panic

The stock market crashed to its worst day since 1987, shrugging off dramatic intervention by two central banks and a prime-time address by President Trump as Americans realized the coronavirus will impose new limits on their daily lives.

The Dow Jones industrial average posted its largest one-day point loss in history, dropping almost 2,353 points to close at 21,200.62. In percentage terms, the 10 percent loss marked the Dow’s worst day since the infamous October day known as “Black Monday.”

The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell into a bear market, defined as falling 20 percent from a prior high. In an epic day-long rout, European markets suffered similar declines, with exchanges in Paris and Frankfurt shedding more than 12 percent and London’s FTSE index losing nearly 11 percent. Continue reading.

Something Weird Is Happening on Wall Street, and Not Just the Stock Sell-Off

New York Times logoA sinking feeling reminiscent of the global financial crisis, when all kinds of obscure markets went haywire.

Wednesday was an unsettling day on global financial markets, and not just because the stock market fell sharply enough to bring a decade-plus bull market to an end.

Underneath the headline numbers were a series of movements that don’t really make sense when lined up against one another. They amount to signs — not definitive, but worrying — that something is breaking down in the workings of the financial system, even if it’s not totally clear what that is just yet.

Bond prices and stock prices were moving together, not in opposite directions as they usually do. On a day when major economic disruptions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic appeared to become likelier — which might be expected to make typical market safe havens more popular — many of them fell instead. That included bonds of all sorts and gold. Continue reading.

Dow enters bear market after coronavirus declared pandemic

Washington Post logoThe blue chip index dives nearly 1,500 points as a record, 11-year stock rally comes to a close

Wall Street went into a deep slump Wednesday, falling so far and so fast that the Dow Jones industrial average officially tipped into a bear market, ending a record 11-year stock rally.

The bear market reflects a 20 percent fall from record highs, which the Dow hit less than a month ago, and came after the coronavirus officially became a pandemic. The World Health Organization’s declaration Wednesday reflected its alarm that countries aren’t working quickly and aggressively enough to fight the disease covid-19, caused by the coronavirus.

The Dow — already deep in the red for the day — tumbled nearly 1,500 points after the WHO announcement. It closed at 23,553, a nearly 6 percent decline on the day. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index flirted with bear territory before closing just above the mark at 2,741, a 4.9 percent fall for the session. The Nasdaq composite tumbled 4.7 percent to 7,952. All three indexes are in negative territory for the year.

Stocks plummet as oil price plunge sends markets into frenzy

The Hill logoStocks plunged Monday morning as investors braced for a potential price war among oil exporters that could deepen the economic damage caused by the global coronavirus outbreak.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen more than 1,800 points, an 7.2-percent decline, shortly after 2 p.m. The S&P 500 index was down 7 percent, triggering an automatic 15-minute pause before and the Nasdaq composite was down 6.2 percent.

Stock futures trading predicted stark losses for the market after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries failed to reach a deal on oil output Saturday, prompting Saudi Arabia and Russia to slash prices. The cuts sent oil prices plunging toward the lowest level since 1991.  Continue reading.

Stocks open with steep losses after market slides into coronavirus correction

The Hill logoStocks opened Friday with another round of steep losses following the market’s Thursday plunge into a correction.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank by more than 700 points at the start of Friday trading, falling 2.8 percent. The S&P 500 index also fell 2.6 percent, while the Nasdaq composite took a loss of 2.4 percent.

All three major indexes have fallen more than 10 percent below their most recent peaks, which is the formal threshold for a correction. Wall Street has suffered its worst week of losses since the 2007-08 financial crisis as public health officials warn of a likely coronavirus outbreak within the U.S. Continue reading.

Trump Administration Faces Economic Test as Coronavirus Shakes Markets

New York Times logoIf the virus spreads in the United States, the Federal Reserve might have to cut rates. But how fiscal policymakers respond is likely to be even more important.

WASHINGTON — The global spread of the deadly coronavirus is posing a significant economic test for President Trump, whose three-year stretch of robust growth could be shaken by supply chain delays, a tourism slowdown and ruptures in other critical sectors of the American economy.

The outbreak of the virus in China has already disrupted global trade, sending American companies and retailers that rely on Chinese imports scrambling to repair a temporary break in their supply chains. Its spread to South Korea, Italy and beyond has hindered global travel. Economic forecasters say that the effects will hurt growth in the United States this year even if they do not intensify — and that if the virus becomes a global pandemic, it could knock the world economy into recession.

Stock markets have plunged this week on fears about the virus, with companies such as Apple and Microsoft among the most prominent businesses that have warned that supply chain disruptions could slow sales. Analysts said this week’s declines were on track to be the steepest since the 2008 financial crisis. Continue reading.