Falling Stocks, Rising Anxiety: Covering the Market Chaos - The New York Times

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Broadway closed its curtains. The National Basketball Association suspended its season. President Trump declared a national emergency. And investors saw the Dow Jones industrial average experience its fastest fall into a bear market: a 20 percent plunge from its peak in 20 days, reflecting our growing uncertainty about a future shaped by the coronavirus pandemic. After a chaotic week, we asked Matt Phillips, a markets reporter on the Business desk, to break down the turmoil on Wall Street.

Walk us through last week. What happened?

Everyone knew the virus was spreading in China and compartmentalized it. At a certain point there was a psychological shift and it seemed to be when the virus spread to Italy. As one of my sources said, a lot of Wall Street workers have been to Italy. This wasn’t as “foreign” as people thought.

Then there has been growing concern about the response from our government. President Trump had been very good for the stock market in a lot of ways, but it seemed from talking to people that they were getting concerned there wasn’t a serious response — especially about testing.

Wall Street isn’t warm and fuzzy. What they really want to see is numbers. They need estimates, they need forecasts, they need expectations. And if there aren’t numbers to work with, then Wall Street doesn’t know what to do. The fact that there hasn’t been substantial testing in the United States drove the Street crazy.

Did the stock market events of last week surprise you?

I never would have predicted a collapse like we saw last week. In hindsight, everything looks obvious, but it’s not obvious when you’re there. This was the end of the bull market, in part because the Federal Reserve, which has been like a huge wind at the market’s back for a decade, can’t solve it: It can’t print enough money to ensure people don’t get infected by the virus. It doesn’t matter what your mortgage rate is if you’re scared to go out to the bar and buy a beer.

You’ve said that there could be bigger problems for the financial system. Can you explain?

I don’t want to be alarmist. It’s not going to be 2008 again. It’s just that the financial system is not operating the way it’s supposed to. When the economy is weak, the Fed lowers interest rates to lower the cost of borrowing for different things, like a mortgage. But because of the dysfunction in the treasury market right now, mortgage rates have been rising. And that shouldn’t be happening. And that shows things aren’t working as they should.

How have your sources been reacting?

They’re saying it’s scary. I just got an email from a guy saying, “This was the craziest week ever.” People in the stock market typically talk in generalities because specifics are valuable — it’s like a poker game, no one gives their tells. So for me, my job is more like trying to take their temperature on what they think is driving the market and why it’s moving. But no one really has any idea. We tend to anthropomorphize the stock market, but it’s really the sum of millions of people with millions of motivations taking millions of positions, so there is never one answer.

Things changed again drastically after President Trump’s news conference on Friday.

Most of the activity in the stock market happens at the beginning and end of the day. So the news conference was exactly the message investors wanted to hear, and it was delivered at the exact time that would have the maximum impact to the market. It’s not a mistake that he delivered it at that time. He cares a lot about what the stock market does.

How does your coronavirus coverage compare with how you usually report on the stock market?

It got very crazy very fast so we just had to chase the story. It’s very hard to plan. For instance, on Friday we thought we would have time to step back and say something more thematic about the economy. I wrote a whole story that was basically blown up at the end of the day.

I’ve never seen something of this scale and so all-encompassing. People will be stuck at home whether they have money or not, so processing what that means for the United States, if it gets worse, is hard to understand.

Is there a bright side to all of this gloom?

Um, well … (laughs). This is a weird time. The thing about stocks is you should be buying consistently over time, so I’m not putting my money under the mattress. I’m still contributing to my 401(k).

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2020-03-16 06:32:00Z
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/reader-center/stock-reporter-coronavirus.html