Wall Street does not like the Coronavirus.
Despite all government intervention and reassurances, Wall Street looks to a recession as most all of the gains since Trump was elected have vanished.
All major U.S. indices are now in a bear market, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq shredding more than 25 percent off their February highs, and the Dow Jones industrial average down 28 percent.
Panic struck early this morning as investors reacted to the Fed’s plan to slash interest to zero, buy $700 billion in government bonds and mortgage-backed securities and revive a crisis-era “quantitative easing” program.
Mid-day there was some bounce back, but during a press conference with the TrumpVirus team, the Dow fell nearly 3,000 points or 13%. The S&P ended at 12% down and the NASDAQ 12.3% down. It was Wall Street’s worst day since 1987.
“The only certainty at this point is more volatility,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer of Independent Advisor Alliance, wrote in commentary Monday. “I would expect the market to price in a recession, and if that turns out not to be the case — or if credible and specific fiscal and public health policies are put in place to contain the economic and public health risks — that is when you will begin to see a bottom in the stock market.”
Consumer spending is expected to go down as people are staying at home, and it is expected to hit several industries hard, including the service industry, travel and entertainment industries, movie theaters and more, with a domino effect, from the businesses to the property owners to the banks with property loans.
This was at the Washington Post.
