The relentless spread of the coronavirus has put an end to eleven years of uninterrupted growth on the New York Stock Exchange. Wall Street was swept away in another tornado on Wednesday at the end of an eventful day on the financial markets.
The billions pledged by the various authorities to mitigate the devastating effects of the health crisis on the economy have not been enough to appease investors. The leading Wall Street index, the Dow Jones, plunged by 5.86%.
It lost a total of more than 20% compared to its last record in February, thus officially ending the longest period without major crisis that the New York place has known. We have to go back to March 2009 to find a fall of such magnitude over a short period.
European drops
The European stock markets, after being reassured at the opening by the announcement of exceptional measures to support the economy from the United Kingdom, also, for the most part, closed down: Paris (-0.57%), Frankfurt (-0.96%), London (-1.40%), Zurich (-0.47%) or Madrid (-0.34%).
The ambitious Italian measures (a plan of 25 billion euros in the most affected European country), on the other hand, enabled the Milan Stock Exchange to stay head above water (+ 0.33% ). Asian stock markets also fell, with Tokyo dropping 2.27%, Shanghai 0.94% and Hong Kong 0.63%.
“It will get worse”
Clues started to tumble frankly on Wall Street when the World Health Organization “(WHO) described the Covid-19 epidemic, which infected more than 110,000 people, as a” pandemic. “Maris Ogg, portfolio manager at Tower Bridge Advisors, it says “the worst may still be to come”.
“It will probably take a few more weeks before we have a clear idea of the extent” of the epidemic, “it will take a little time before the market overcomes the panic,” says the expert.
The woes of Boeing, which tumbled 18% as markets worried about its fragile financial situation in the middle of one of the most serious crises in air transport, completed on Wednesday to derail the Dow Jones.
Relapse of oil
Investors were also again scalded Wednesday by the relapse of oil prices, which had rebounded sharply Tuesday after their crash the previous day.
They started to fall again as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced their intention to drastically increase their production of black gold, at a time when demand is weakened by the spread of the coronavirus in the world, thus accentuating again the price war with Russia.
Brent crude dropped 3.8% to 35.79 dollars in London when the American barrel of WTI lost 4% to 32.98 dollars in New York.
ats, dpa
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