Coronavirus: US stocks plunge, nearly erasing gains since Donald Trump became president in 2017
- Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 6.3 per cent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 5.2 per cent and the Nasdaq slid 4.7 per cent
- Trading continues a stretch of eight sessions that saw the S&P swing 4 per cent or more
US stocks plunged Wednesday — with the drop accelerating after President Donald Trump’s midday briefing on the government’s response to coronavirus outbreak failed to calm investors and led to a temporary halt in trading.
Continuing a series of trading sessions characterised by unprecedented market volatility, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1,335 points, or 6.3 per cent, closing at 19,902.35. The S&P 500 fell 5.2 per cent and the Nasdaq composite index slid 4.7 per cent.
Stocks opened sharply lower but were trying to claw back some of those losses when Trump took part in the daily briefing by the White House’s coronavirus task force; by its end, stocks resumed their plunge, triggering the “circuit breaker” just before 1pm in New York. The 15-minute break is intended to limit a market free fall. It was the fourth session in less than two weeks that trading was halted.
After trading was resumed, the frantic sell-off continued, and erased the gains the Dow had made since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017 — when it closed at 19,827.25 — before closing slightly higher. It was the Dow’s first close under 20,000 points since February 2017.
The drops more than wiped out gains made on Tuesday, when the Dow rose more than 1,000 points after the Trump administration proposed a stimulus package aiming to stabilise the US economy.
