Stocks – Panic Selling Continues as Dow Opens Below 25,000

By Geoffrey Smith

Investing.com — Panic selling continued in the U.S. stock market on Friday, putting the market on course for its biggest weekly loss since 2008 amid growing signs that the coronavirus outbreak will ultimately cause an economic shock in Western economies as well as in China and its Asian trading partners.

The opened with another loss of 627 points, or 2.6%, taking it below the 25,000 mark. By 9:33 AM ET (1433 GMT), the DJIA had rebounded to 25,139 points, down 2.4%. The was also down 2.4% at its lowest since October 2019. The , meanwhile, fell 2.2%.

Overnight, another sharp jump in the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in South Korea and Iran, coupled with new emergency virus containment measures in Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere, all contributed to keeping the mood negative. A better-than-expected monthly rise of 0.6% in U.S. in January was of little consolation.

“The landscape remains very uncertain,” said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer of BlueBay Asset Management in a weekly note. “For now, there is a sense with the coronavirus that things will need to get worse before they can get better.”

He argued that the point of “maximum bearishness” could be another couple of weeks away.

“This could coincide with the moment that Covid19 is officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization,” something that could lay the groundwork for a coordinated response of policy stimulus, Dowding argued. Such hopes seem far away at the moment, with the U.S. and German governments both playing down the seriousness of the situation.

The bond market is now betting heavily on the Federal Reserve riding to the rescue. The 2-Year Treasury bond yield dipped below 1% overnight and then roared lower to 0.91% after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard indicated that the Fed, if not fiscal policy, would react to a global pandemic.

“Further policy rate cuts are a possibility if a global pandemic actually develops with health effects approaching the scale of ordinary influenza, but this is not the baseline case at this time,” Bullard, who doesn’t vote on monetary policy this year, said Friday in prepared remarks to be delivered in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

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