Stocks sank in morning trading on Wall Street Monday, putting the benchmark S&P 500 on track for what the market considers a correction — a drop of 10% or more from its most recent high.

The S&P 500 fell 2.5% to 4,287.22 as of 10:15 a.m. ET, and is now down about 10.7% from the high it set on Jan. 4. A close of 4,316.90 or lower will put it into a correction.

The declines in the market extend a recent run of losses that have left major indexes in a January slump. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 712 points, or 2.1%, to 33,544 and the Nasdaq fell 3%.

Investors have been growing increasingly worried about how aggressively the Federal Reserve, which holds a policy meeting this week, might act to cool rising inflation. Wall Street anticipates the first increase in interest rates as early as March, and investors have grown increasingly concerned the Fed will have to raise rates more quickly and more often than the central bank originally indicated.

The Fed’s benchmark short-term interest rate is currently in a range of 0% to 0.25%. Investors now see a nearly 70% chance that the Fed will raise the rate by at least one percentage point by the end of the year, according to CME Group’s Fed Watch tool.

Inflation is putting pressure on businesses and consumers as demand for goods continues to outpace supplies. Companies have been warning that supply chain problems and rising raw materials costs could crimp their finances. Retailers, food producers and others have been raising prices on goods to try to offset the impact.

Wall Street also has several key economic reports to look forward to this week. Investors will get more data on how consumers feel with the release on Tuesday of The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index for January. The Commerce Department releases its report on fourth-quarter gross domestic product on Thursday and its report on personal income and spending for December on Friday.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: https://www.newsy.com/stories/stock-market-tumbles-as-fed-eyes-interest-rate-hikes/

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U.S. equity markets soared Monday after drugmaker Moderna announced progress toward a COVID-19 vaccine and as lockdowns continued to ease nationwide.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained as many as 1,023 points before paring its advance in the final hour of trading.

The S&P 500 registered its best day since early April, rising 3.15 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.44 percent.

Investors also reacted favorably to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who said the central bank will continue to support the U.S. economy for as long as necessary.

Powell also warned that while the U.S. economy will return to growth in 2020, it may not reach pre-crisis levels until late next year and that a full recovery may hinge on the discovery of a COVID-19 vaccine.

TEXAS FEARS LOSING OIL-RICH LANDS IN CHINESE TAKEOVER OF WEAKENED ENERGY COMPANIES

“For the economy to fully recover, people will have to be fully confident. And that may have to await the arrival of a vaccine,” Powell said on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

He added the central bank is “not out of ammunition by a long shot” and that “there’s a lot more” that can be done to support the economy.

At least 14 U.S. states eased lockdown restrictions on Monday, including Florida, which allowed gyms and fitness centers to reopen at 50 percent capacity and restaurants and retailers to increase their volume to 50 percent. Massachusetts will begin opening businesses with a phased plan on May 18.

Looking at stocks, drugmaker Moderna received positive results from a Phase 1 clinical trial for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

Automakers Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler reopened vehicle assembly plants on Monday at limited capacity. The industry employs about 1 million workers and makes up 6 percent of U.S. economic activity.

Apple will reopen 25 U.S. stores this week, 12 in Canada and 10 in Italy. Anyone entering the locations will be subject to temperature checks and be required to wear face coverings.

GrubHub has rejected Uber’s latest all-stock takeover offer of 1.9 Uber shares for each GrubHub share, saying the offer undervalued the company. Talks remain ongoing.

J.C. Penney filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following Friday’s closing bell. The retailer earlier on Friday announced it had made a $17 million interest payment as it weighed strategic alternatives.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil spiked 8.12 percent to $31.82 per barrel and gold slipped 1.23 percent to $1,732 an ounce.

U.S. Treasurys slipped, causing the yield on the 10-year note to climb to 0.741 percent.

European markets were higher across the board with Germany’s DAX up 5.67 percent, France’s CAC higher by 5.16 percent and Britain’s FTSE adding 4.29 percent.

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In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.58 percent and China’s Shanghai Composite edged up 0.24 percent. Meanwhile, the Nikkei added 0.48 percent after government data showed the Japanese economy entered a recession in the first quarter.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-stocks-may-18-2020

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• The US stock market plunged as much as 7% immediately after regular trading began on Monday, prompting the first halt since the depths of the financial crisis in December 2008.
• The losses came amid a raging global oil-price war and continued fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.
• All three major US indexes tanked as investors mulled the oil-markets chaos between Saudi Arabia and Russia.
• The rising death toll from the virus in the US prompted new fears of an economic slowdown. The virus has killed 21 people and infected more than 500 people throughout the US.
• Watch major indexes update here.

Stocks plummeted 7% at Monday’s market open, prompting the first marketwide trading halt since the depths of the financial crisis in December 2008. The losses came as an oil-price war and the escalating coronavirus outbreak hammered risk assets from all sides.

The three major US indexes declined as equities investors digested the weekend’s oil-market news. The commodity tanked the most since 1991 on Monday morning after Saudi Arabia’s surprise price cuts kicked off a production war with Russia. The move followed Russia’s refusal on Friday to curb oil production to prop up the coronavirus-rattled market.

Concerns about the coronavirus outbreak continued to weigh on investors as cases increased in New York, California, and Florida, among other states, to more than 500 people. The US death toll stood at 21 people, and the recent surge in confirmed cases could stifle economic activity by weakening consumer spending behavior.

The coronavirus has so far killed more than 3,800 people and infected more than 110,000 people.

Here’s where major US indexes stood as of 9:50 a.m. ET:

• S&P 500: 2,755.16, down 7.3%
• Dow Jones industrial average: 23,836.69, down 7.8% (2,028.09 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 7,969.13, down 7.1%

Read more: ‘Much worse than 2008’: An expert who foresaw the dot-com crash warns the stock market’s recent turmoil has kicked off another full-blown financial crisis

The negative open extended the stock-market sell-off into its third week. Equities tanked for seven days in a row to close out February as fears about the coronavirus outbreak’s economic toll caught up with stocks’ lofty valuations. Risk assets recovered in March’s first trading session before intense price swings saw the market close Friday having erased nearly all month-to-date gains.

Central banks around the world have issued emergency stimulus to counteract an economic hit caused by the outbreak.

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-news-today-indices-plunge-oil-market-chaos-coronavirus-2020-3-1028976697

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U.S. equity markets surged Monday as Wall Street rebounded from its worst week since the financial crisis and has President Trump and U.S. health officials made more progress in developing a plan to combat the coronavirus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 1,294 points or 5 percent in what is the biggest point gain ever. Ditto for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq from a point gain of 136 and 384 points respectively.

The rally comes after a volatile overnight session saw Dow futures swing by more than 1,100 points and the U.S. 10-year yield sink to a record low 1.03 percent.

Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 3,500 amid coronavirus fears. Both the Dow and S&P 500 are trying to avoid an eighth straight day of losses, something that hasn’t happened since the Friday before the 2016 election.

Looking at stocks, consumer goods names rallied amid signs consumers were hoarding goods just in case the outbreak causes lengthy home quarantines.

Meanwhile, Co-Diagnostics soared after announcing plans to provide coronavirus test kits to U.S. labs.

Apple shares gained after Oppenheimer said the company’s “products and services will prove more resilient than competitive products in uncertain times” and upgraded shares to “outperform.”

General Electric was little changed after J.P. Morgan Chase upgraded shares to “neutral” and raised its price target to $8 from $5. On Sunday, former GE CEO Jack Welch died at the age of 84.

Meanwhile, airlines were mostly lower after more signs the outbreak will take a toll on business. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines announced the cancellation of service to and from Milan through late April and United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz said the airline would “likely” need to cut more flights from its schedule.

Casino operators Wynn Resorts and MGM International fell after Macao, the gaming capital of the world, reporting gross gaming revenue plunged by a record 87.8 percent year over year to 3.1 billion patacas ($386.5 million) in February.

Cruise operators Carnival Corp., Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line slid following the news Japanese operator Luminous Cruise filed for bankruptcy amid a slew of cancellations caused by the outbreak.

Commodities were sharply higher with West Texas Intermediate crude oil up 4.5 percent to $46.75 a barrel and gold climbing by 1.8 percent to $1,592.30 an ounce.

European markets were mixed with Britain’s FTSE up 1.1 percent France’s CAC higher by 0.4 percent. Germany’s DAX was down by 0.3 percent.

Overnight, a monthly purchasing managers’ index released Monday by Caixin magazine showed Chinese factory activity fell to 40.3 in February from 51.1 in January as the outbreak forced the temporary closure of facilities around much of the country. A separate report released Saturday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed a plunge to 35.7 from 50. Still, business confidence rose to a five-year high amid hopes Beijing would provide stimulus to cushion the economy.

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Markets rallied across Asia as China’s Shanghai Composite surged 3.2 percent, Japan’s Nikkei jumped 1 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.6 percent.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-stocks-march-2-2020

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The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average had its steepest drop on Christmas Eve in its 122-year history. It also was the worst Christmas Eve for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and the first time the broader S&P 500 ever had more than a 1 percent drop on Dec. 24. The loss for the S&P 500 put the index into bear market, where it joined the Nasdaq.

If the markets had not closed at 1 p.m. ET for the holiday, the damage might have been worse.

A trifecta of concerns drove investors to sell: The prospect of rising interest rates; global economic weakness; and the likelihood that the partial government shutdown will extend into next year.

Congress missed a midnight Friday deadline for getting a spending bill passed, resulting in a partial government shutdown. No votes are scheduled to end the stalemate until after Christmas.

Monday’s hammering followed a stomach-churning week, when the Dow lost 6.9 percent and the S&P 500 tumbled 7.1 percent. The Nasdaq gave up 8.4 percent, making it the first of the three major averages to fall into bear market territory.

Concerns about the ability of the markets to handle the sell-off promoted Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin late Sunday to contact the CEOs of the nation’s six largest banks and convene a meeting of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. That group, which includes officials in the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, met to ensure the financial system had adequate liquidity to handle all the selling.

Mnuchin “confirmed that they have not experienced any clearance or margin issues and that the markets continue to function properly,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.

The day’s downdraft hammered crude oil prices: West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark U.S. crude oil, tumbled 6.7 percent to $42.53 per barrel.

The only shred of good news Monday came when China said it plans to remove import and export tariffs in 2019 on a range of goods, including import taxes on alternative meals used in animal feed, to secure supplies of raw materials amid trade tensions with the United States and boosting outbound cargoes.

In Monday’s Asian trading, China’s Shanghai Composite ended the day up 0.4 percent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 0.4 percent.

And Japan’s markets were closed.

In Europe trading, London’s FTSE was down 0.5 percent, France’s CAC traded down 1.5 percent.  Germany’s markets were closed for Christmas Eve.

On Friday, stocks ended a choppy session sharply lower with the Nasdaq Composite in bear market territory.

The tech-heavy index lost 3 percent, or more than 195 points, the Dow Jones Industrials fell over 414 points, or nearly 2 percent, while the S&P shed 2 percent plus, ending the week with a third down session.

Amid the selling, investors did get decent economic data on Friday. Third-quarter gross domestic product came in at 3.4 percent in a third update released on Friday, in line with analyst expectations and slightly lower than the first reading of 3.5 percent, according to the Commerce Department.

FOX Business’ Ken Martin contributed to this story.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/dow-plunges-650-points-in-worst-christmas-eve-trading-session-ever

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