La Oferta

March 29, 2024

Wall Street plunges again on coronavirus fears, Dow 969 points

New York, Mar 5 (EFE).– Wall Street suffered heavy losses on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging by 969.58 points, or 3.58 percent, the big move coming as coronavirus fears hit the market again and sent the yield on the 10-year US Treasury Bond to a historic low of 0.899 percent.

At the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange the Dow had lost most of the ground it had gained on Wednesday, when it was up by almost 1,200 points after former Joe Biden’s strong showing in the Democratic primaries the day before, ending the day at 26,121.28 points, the Thursday decline led by firms such as United Technologies, down 9.06 percent, and Boeing, off by 8.04 percent.

The S&P500 index fell 3.39 percent, or 106.18 points, to 3,023.94, while the NASDAQ Composite Index, which includes the top tech firms, gave up 3.10 percent, or 289.49 points, closing at 8,738.59.

Trading on the New York exchange has been extremely volatile this week with noteworthy oscillations in the Dow. On Monday, the market rose a record 1,290 points, only to lose much of that gain on Tuesday, dropping 786 points, then gaining 1,173 points on Wednesday.

The VIX index, known as the market’s “fear index” since it reflects the anticipated volatility in the S&P500, shot up on Thursday by almost 27 percent.

On Thursday, the spread of the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, once again sparked pessimism among traders, as it had done even after the US Federal Reserve reduced interest rates by 0.50 percent on Tuesday and the Senate approved $8.3 billion in emergency funding to battle the virus.

Analysts at Wells Fargo on Thursday released a report on the impact of the coronavirus, saying that the US has less exposure to a “global pandemic scenario” than some other countries, although the bank noted that certain economies have significantly more exposure than the US.

The report said that, among the advanced economies, the US had relatively less exposure to a global pandemic, while countries such as Switzerland and Singapore have the most exposure. The bank also said that Latin America has less economic exposure to a global pandemic.

President Donald Trump this week met with the heads of big pharmaceutical firms to ask them to accelerate the search for a vaccine, and he also met with the country’s major airlines, who are being hit hard by lower travel demand and are taking measures to deal with the fall-off in revenues.

Specifically, on Thursday various airlines suffered heavy losses in the price of their shares, with American Airlines plunging 13.44 percent, United down 13.25 percent, Southwest down 3.58 percent, Delta down 7.20 percent and JetBlue down 10.81 percent.

By sectors, the industrial sector was the hardest hit on Thursday, losing 4.96 percent, while the financial sector retreated 4.88 percent and non-durable goods fell 3.77 percent.

In other markets, West Texas Intermediate Crude dropped 1.9 percent to $45.90 per barrel, while the 10-year T-Bond closed at a yield of 0.915 percent, gold rose to $1,672.80 per ounce and the euro rose against the dollar to $1.1234.