Thursday was a dark day for global stock markets. U.S. stocks clasped into corrections territory on Thursday as California announced that it is monitoring 8,400 people with potential coronavirus infections. The Dow Jones dropped over 1,100 point, its largest correction in history. The S&P 500 also made history on Thursday, falling into its fastest every correction.
Paul Ashworth, Capital Economic's top U.S. economist stated: "there is no way our [economic] models can incorporate that risk of a widespread coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. which, just like it appears to have done in China, would almost inevitably cause a recession."
Here's the stock market closed on this bleak Thursday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): -4.43% or -137.93 points to 2,978.45
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): -4.43% or -1,194.98 points to 25,762.61
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): -4.61% or -414.29 points to 8,566.48
In Major Stock News, Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) were all hit by the large investor sell off. Travel stocks, especially airlines like American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL), JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) all plunged to new lows. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) fell after the tech company announced that its supply chain has been interrupted by the coronavirus outbreak.
In Stock Sector News, sectors had a very bleak performance day. The losses per sector are as follows: Real Estate -5.59%, Energy -5.47%, Information Technology -5.33%, Utilities -4.69%, Materials -4.66%, Financials -4.37%, Consumer Discretionary -4.07%, Consumer Staples -4.07%, Communication Services -4.05%, Industrials -3.79% and Health Care -3.33%.
Lastly, in Commodity and Currency News, the downward spiral for crude oil prices continued on Thursday. West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) tanked -4.75%, plunging barrel prices to their lowest cost in over a year. Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) also declined -3.78%, pushing the oil price indicator just above $51 per barrel. Those moving funds around sought after gold (NYSE: GLD) today, with the metal's price rising almost +0.30%. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) also took a hit from recent market activity, with the DXY Index dropping over -0.75%.