Wall Street fell sharply again on Thursday, as the Dow Jones collapsed by nearly 1,200 points in a market still panicked by the spread of the coronavirus worldwide.
Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 4.42% to 25,766.64 points.
The highly technological Nasdaq plunged 4.61% to 8,566.48 points.
The S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, sagged 4.42% to 2,978.76 points. It is the first time that it has fallen below 3,000 points since October.
By giving up more than 10% since the start of the week, the New York market has entered the correction zone.
With the Dow Jones hitting a record two weeks ago and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq last week, Wall Street is headed for its worst weekly losses since the fall of 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis.
The New York Stock Exchange evolved in red throughout Thursday’s session, accentuating its fall shortly before the close.
According to Maris Ogg of Tower Bridge Advisors, many uncertainties surrounding the epidemic of viral pneumonia and its rate of spread across the planet are of great concern to investors.
“We don’t have any answers yet and we’re not going to have them for a while, probably not for two to four weeks,” said the expert.
“The more there are infections linked to the coronavirus, the more we risk staying in the correction zone,” she continues.
Ms. Ogg also recalls that the indices having recently broken records, the market should not be surprised by this decline.
On Wednesday evening, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the first case of “unknown exposure” in California, this person having neither traveled to risk areas nor been in contact with another patient.
Donald Trump wanted to be confident, however, ensuring that a large-scale spread of the new coronavirus in the United States was not inevitable.
The number of cases of new coronavirus in the world amounted to at least 82,560, including 2,813 deaths, in 50 countries and territories, according to a report established by AFP on Thursday from official sources.
The most affected countries after China are South Korea, Italy, Iran, and Japan.
The wind of panic in the equity market once again caused a huge movement towards bonds, considered to be safer.
The 10-year rate on US Treasuries thus moved close to its historic low around 9:30 p.m. GMT, appearing at 1.264%, just like the 30-year rate at 1.764%.
In a note released Thursday, Goldman Sachs analysts now anticipate that US companies will not experience earnings growth in 2020 if the coronavirus continues to grow.
“The downward revision of our forecasts reflects the sharp decline in Chinese economic activity in the first quarter, the decline in demand for American exporters, the disruption of the supply chain, the slowdown in American economic activity and heightened uncertainty, “they write.
