Stock trading halted until 9:49 ET after the S&P 500 craters 7%
Stocks tumbled on Monday as investors braced for the economic fallout from the spreading coronavirus, while a shocking all-out oil price war added to the anxiety.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked more than 1,800 points at the open, while the S&P 500 dropped 7%. The massive sell-off triggered a key market circuit breaker in morning trading. Trading was halted for 15 minutes until 9:49 a.m. ET.
The sharp declines followed a roller-coaster week that saw the S&P 500 swing up or down more than 2.5% for four days straight. While Monday's drop was significant, it still didn't crack the 20 worst days for the S&P 500.
Gold, another safe-haven asset, crossed $1,700 an ounce, hitting its highest level since Dec. 2012. Meanwhile, copper prices hit a more than three-year low of $2.46. Copper is seen as a barometer of broad economic demand given its applications in electrical equipment and manufacturing.
The Federal Reserve announced an emergency rate cut last week to combat the economic impact from the virus, its first such move since the financial crisis. President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping spending bill of an $8.3 billion package to aid medical research.
The New York Fed said Monday it will increase the amount of money it is offering to banks for their short-term funding needs. To make sure the funding, or repo, markets are working properly, the central bank said it will up the amount it offers in overnight operations from $100 billion to $150 billion through Thursday.
Traders expect the central bank to slash rates by three-quarters of a percentage point at its upcoming March meeting. Chances for a full percentage point cut this month were at 29.2%, according to the CME FedWatch tracker.
The iShares High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) fell 4.5%, on concerns that a oil price crash will cause many small energy companies to default, hitting the high yield credit market that they've become so a large part of.