The New York Stock Exchange fell sharply on Wednesday, shaken by indicators reflecting more strongly than expected the scale of the disaster caused in the United States by the restrictive measures intended to limit the spread of COVID-19.
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Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 1.86% to 23,504.35 points and the technology-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.44% to 8,393.18 points.
The S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, dropped 2.20%, to 2783.36 points.
“The much weaker than expected data shows how weak the economy has been and investors are probably thinking it’s much worse than expected,” said Sam Stovall of CFRA.
Retail sales fell 8.7% in March in the country compared to February, including a dip in clothing and accessories sales by half.
Industrial production fell 5.4% from February, according to data from the US Federal Reserve (Fed). This is the largest decline recorded since January 1946.
In the New York region, epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, manufacturing activity even fell, in early April, to its lowest level in history, said the branch of the New York Fed.
That said, notes Sam Stovall, the indices had climbed a lot on Tuesday in favor of news appearing to show a stabilization of the spread of the virus in certain particularly affected areas, and suggesting a possible reopening of the economy.
“We go up one day, we go down the next day, to return to roughly the same level, it’s a broker’s paradise,” he emphasizes.
Like JPMorgan Chase (-4.96%) and Wells Fargo (-5.75%) on Tuesday, the banks Bank of America (-6.49%) and Citigroup (-5.64%) also reported on occasion. of the publication of their quarterly results having had to set aside billions of dollars to deal with possible delinquencies from their customers due to the coronavirus crisis.
The energy sector has for its part been affected by a further fall in oil prices in London and New York, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that the demand for crude will suffer this year. a “historic” collapse of 9.3 million barrels per day (mbd). The sub-index representing the sector within the S&P 500 plunged 4.67%.
In the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt fell to 0.6348% from 0.7520% the day before at the close.
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