US stocks plunged again Thursday, spoiling a historic three-day rally as the rampant spread of the coronavirus in the US rattled Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average sank as much as 898.86 points, or nearly 4 percent, as the US eclipsed China this week with its total number of coronavirus cases, which is now …
US stocks plunged again Thursday, spoiling a historic three-day rally as the rampant spread of the coronavirus in the US rattled Wall Street.
The Dow Jones industrial average sank as much as 898.86 points, or nearly 4 percent, as the US eclipsed China this week with its total number of coronavirus cases, which is now more than 85,000. Nearly 1,300 were dead in the US as of Friday.
The early Friday selloff came after the Dow soared almost 4,000 points in the prior three trading days — its biggest three-day jump since 1931.
The three-day surge, spurred by hopes of Congress passing a $2 trillion stimulus package to address the virus, had put an end to the blue-chip index’s 11-day bear market, its shortest ever. Nevertheless, stocks continue to languish, with all three major indexes more than 20 percent off their February highs.
The S&P 500 on Friday sank as much as roughly 3.5 percent in early trading while the Nasdaq dropped 3.1 percent.
The declines came as continued fears about the virus appeared to dampen any optimism among investors about the House of Representatives voting Friday on the massive stimulus bill the Senate passed earlier in the week.
“We may have had a good run this week but the weekend can feel like a long time at moments like this and the numbers [we are] getting from the US, which now has more cases than China or Italy, are getting uglier by the day,” Craig Erlam, senior currency analyst at OANDA, wrote in a commentary.
