New York: Stocks plummeted 7% at Monday’s market open, prompting the first marketwide trading halt since the depths of the financial crisis in December 2008. The losses came as an oil-price war and the escalating coronavirus outbreak hammered risk assets from all sides.
The three major US indexes declined as equities investors digested the weekend’s oil-market news. The commodity tanked the most since 1991 on Monday morning after Saudi Arabia’s surprise price cuts kicked off a production war with Russia. The move followed Russia’s refusal on Friday to curb oil production to prop up the coronavirus-rattled market.
Concerns about the coronavirus outbreak continued to weigh on investors as cases increased in New York, California, and Florida, among other states, to more than 500 people. The US death toll stood at 21 people, and the recent surge in confirmed cases could stifle economic activity by weakening consumer spending behavior.
