Stock Market Today: Live Updates and Coverage - The New York Times

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Stock selling reaches extremes as investors face a new crisis.

Stocks suffered their sharpest decline in more than nine years on Monday, with markets around the world plunging as oil prices cratered after a clash between the worlds biggest oil producers.

The S&P 500, already down 12 percent from its late February high, fell another 5 percent. The sudden downdraft meant that trading in the United States was automatically halted early in the day, after the S&P 500 initially fell 7 percent.

The drop on Monday was the worst for stocks in the United States since August 2011, when a congressional fight over the debt ceiling pushed the United States to the brink of defaulting on its debt. The selling in recent weeks has left stock prices roughly where they were last June.

After Saudi Arabia and Russia set off a price war for crude over the weekend, oil lost nearly a quarter of its value in early trading on Monday, the kind of plunge that has not happened in nearly 30 years. That led to a collapse in share prices of companies and businesses that service the oil and gas sector. Manufacturers and banks, which are sensitive to concerns about the economy, also tumbled.

Financial markets have whipped around for weeks as investors struggled to quantify the economic impact of the spreading coronavirus: stocks have tumbled, oil prices cratered, and yields on government bonds reflected a sense among investors that there was worse still to come.

“Markets want to hear that the global economy is open for business, and the problem is, it isn’t easy to say that going forward,” said Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at the investment advisory firm Silvercrest Asset Management.

In Europe, major stock benchmarks were down more than 6 percent. Shares ended sharply lower in Asia also.

As stocks fell, investors seeking a safe harbor pushed yields on government bonds to new lows. The yield on the closely watched 10-year U.S. Treasury bond, which falls as the price of the bonds rise, dropped below 0.5 percent, about half the level of just a week ago.

A plunge in the S&P 500 on Monday hit 7 percent, setting off an automatic 15-minute halt in trading. — Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times

Trading in stocks was temporarily halted Monday morning. Here’s why.

Five minutes into the trading day in the United States on Monday, the plunge in the S&P 500 hit 7 percent, setting off an automatic 15-minute trading halt known as a circuit breaker.

The next trading halt would come if the S&P 500 falls 13 percent from Friday’s close. Should stocks fall 20 percent, trading would end for the rest of the day.

Circuit breakers were introduced after the October 1987 Black Monday stock market crash as a way to provide time for reflection by temporarily halting the action on hectic days. The circuit breakers were revamped after the May 6, 2010, collapse in stocks that came to be known as the Flash Crash. Monday was the first time the current circuit breakers, which were established in 2013, were set off.

It seemed to have helped on Monday: The S&P 500 recovered some ground soon after trading resumed, and was down about 6 percent by 10 a.m.

Oil stocks crater following crude’s plunge.

Shares in oil companies fell sharply Monday, reflecting the loss of billions of dollars in value, as the price of crude nose-dived.

In the United States, the 10 worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 were oil producers. All of them were down more than 30 percent, with shares of companies like Marathon Oil and Apache Corporation down about 40 percent.

Larger oil producers like Exxon Mobil and Chevron fell about 10 percent.

Elsewhere, Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, fell as much as 10 percent, the maximum amount allowed on the Riyadh stock exchange.

Royal Dutch Shell fell as much as 22 percent after trading started in Europe, but then shed about half of those losses, to about 13 percent lower in midmorning trading.

Shares in BP, based in Britain, and France-based Total were lower by about the same amount.

The oil price war is an existential threat to small U.S. producers

Many small oil companies that are responsible for more than 15 percent of American oil production face bankruptcy if the price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia goes on for more than a few weeks, while larger oil companies will be challenged to protect their dividend payments. Thousands of oil workers are about to receive pink slips.

Producing countries, especially Venezuela, Iran and several African countries, will suffer more intense economic hardship — with political fallout that is hard to predict. The only winners may be drivers who are bound to pay much lower gasoline prices in the coming weeks, particularly those with older, less fuel efficient cars who tend to be low-income consumers.

Trump plays down threat as politicians discuss economic stimulus.

President Trump continued to play down the economic impact from the outbreak, comparing the number of deaths from coronavirus with those from the flu. He also wrote in a tweet that plunging oil prices, which can tip economies into recession, are good for consumers.

The tweets came just as Mr. Trump’s economic advisers were to brief him on a menu of potential fiscal stimulus items on Monday at the White House, according to people familiar with the matter. The options are expected to include targeted tax relief and paid sick leave for workers.

Meanwhile, a senior Democratic aide said on Monday morning that discussions were starting among House committee chairmen, congressional Democrats and administration officials on what such a package might look like.

A day earlier, Democratic leadership in the House and Senate voiced support for government-paid sick leave for workers who are quarantined or stuck at home caring for children and increased spending on unemployment insurance, food stamps and other safety-net programs.

The bull market for stocks may have finally met its match.

Some of the world’s most important financial markets crossed into, or flirted with, bear market territory on Monday. That could augur an ugly week for those holding the world’s wealth.

Japanese and Australian stocks finished bruising trading days down 20 percent from their recent highs — the technical definition of a bear market, the flip side of the go-go bull market that has inspired memorials to surging capitalism. The drops represent billions of dollars in losses for some of the most valuable companies in both countries.

Stocks in Germany, France and Britain plunged on Monday morning, putting all three well into bear market territory.

Bear markets are rare and are sometimes seen as a harbinger of tougher economic times to come. Some notable bear markets in the United States include the one that ushered in the global financial crisis in 2007 and the dot-com bust in 2000.

With the S&P 500 down about 12 percent through Friday, stocks in the United States were not yet in bear market territory on Monday

Here’s what else is happening.

Japan’s economic performance at the end of last year was worse than initially thought, the country’s government said Monday. Japan said its economy had shrunk at an annualized rate of 7.1 percent in the three months that ended in December, revised down from an initial estimate of 6.3 percent last month.
To combat coronavirus-related disinformation on the internet, the British government on Monday said it has pulled together a specialized unit that will work with tech companies to identify and prevent its spread.
To keep cash flowing smoothly through the financial system, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Monday said it would ramp up the amount of funding it offered banks by increasing its daily offering of overnight repurchase agreements — essentially short-term loans to eligible banks.
Staff members at Vice Media Group were told to work from home on Monday after the company said that an employee in its Brooklyn office “may have been exposed” to the coronavirus. The company acted “out of an abundance of caution,” according to Vice spokeswoman Meera Pattni.
For the third time in two weeks, the turmoil in the markets took Robinhood, the retail trading application, offline on Monday morning, infuriating customers who were unable to do anything while stocks plunged. Last week, the company said a surge in customer activity overwhelmed its backend systems, leaving angry investors, some of whom said they lost much of their savings.
The Federal Trade Commission and Food and Drug Administration warned seven companies that have been allegedly selling unapproved products — including teas and essential oils — saying the claims may violate federal law. The companies are Vital Silver, Quinessence Aromatherapy, N-ergetics, GuruNanda, Vivify Holistic Clinic, Herbal Amy and the Jim Bakker Show.
JetBlue said Monday that it was withdrawing its earnings estimates for the first quarter and 2020 because of “ongoing uncertainty” caused by the coronavirus, which has contributed to a rapid decline in airline bookings. JetBlue has said it is adjusting schedules through early May and considering reducing flights and offering voluntary leave to workers.
The crash in energy markets will not hurt Russia as much as other nations and could serve a longstanding Russian energy policy goal of driving out American competitors. Industry analysts say the Kremlin may have calculated that prices were going to drop no matter what they did, so there was no point in further limiting production.

Reporting and research were contributed by Deborah Solomon, Jim Tankersley, Matt Phillips, Adam Satariano, Jeanna Smialek, Alexandra Stevenson, Jack Ewing, Liz Alderman, Li Yuan, Ben Dooley, Kevin Granville and Carlos Tejada.

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