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Trading Halted Market-Wide as S&P Plummets 7% in Minutes

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A sickening plunge in stocks sent markets down shortly after opening on Monday, forcing a halt to trading as investors scrambled to deal with oil market news and the impact of coronavirus concerns on the world’s economy.

The market dropped more than 7 percent after trading started on the New York Stock Exchange, prompting the first suspension of trade since the financial crash of 2008, Business Insider reported.

The Standard and Poor 500 index was down 7.3 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 7.8 percent, and NASDAQ was down 7.3 percent at the break of trade, according to Business Insider.

“The three major US indices declined as equities investors digested the weekend’s oil market news for the first time. 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 follows Russia’s refusal to curb oil production on Friday to prop up the coronavirus-rattled market,” Business Insider reported.

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“Coronavirus concerns continued to weigh on investors as outbreaks grew in New York, California, and Florida, among other states. The US death toll now stands at 21 people, and the recent surge in confirmed cases could stifle economic activity by weakening consumer spending behavior.”

When trading resumed after the 15-minute emergency suspension, all three major indexes were still down 6 percent, the BBC reported.

“It shows a level of nervousness in the market which I haven’t seen in a long time,” Justin Urquhart-Stewart, co-founder of Seven Investment Management, told the BBC.

News of the market turmoil spread rapidly.

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At the root of the volatility is the rapid spread of the coronavirus and fears about what course it might take.

The Associated Press reported Monday:

“The virus has infected more than 110,000 worldwide, and Italy on Sunday followed China’s lead in quarantining a big swath of its country in hopes of corralling the spread. That sparked more fears, as quarantines would snarl supply chains for companies even more than they already have.

“The new coronavirus is now spreading on every continent except Antarctica and hurting consumer spending, industrial production, and travel.”

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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn't need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
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