Stocks Suffer Worst Week Since Financial Crisis Amid Coronavirus Fears
The S&P 500 tumbled for a seventh day, and other economic indicators are flashing warning signs.
Dow ends worst week since 2008 as Fed suggests possible interest rate cuts
As stocks nose-dived this week, calls have grown from prominent investors for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, a move that usually calms markets. Wall Street traders are now betting on at least three rate cuts this year, including one rate reduction when the Fed meets next on March 18.
Even as countries prepared for the likelihood of significant outbreaks, early missteps raised troubling questions about how nations — even those with robust health care systems — will handle a flood of cases.
Taxi and bus drivers are on the forefront of the spread of the coronavirus in Asia, even as a tourism downturn hurts their business.
(Post illustration; iStock and wire photos)
Conservative pundits blame a grab bag of supposed villains amid the outbreak
Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and others have less to say about the spread of the virus than concern for how the news coverage of it affects President Trump.
The selling has in a matter of days dragged stock benchmarks around the world into a correction — a drop of 10 percent or more that is taken as a measure of extreme pessimism.
In Europe, the Britain’s FTSE 100 fell more than 3 percent and the Dax in Germany fell more than 4 percent. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Japan closed down 3.7 percent, the KOSPI in South Korea dropped 3.3 percent and the Shanghai Composite in China dropped 3.7 percent.