Trump says markets are going to be just fine as stocks absorb historic coronavirus-led plunge

Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool

• President Donald Trump said Thursday that markets “are going to be just fine” amid a wild trading season spurred by investor worry over the coronavirus outbreak, CNBC reported.
• Stock futures began to plummet Wednesday night during the president’s address to the nation.
• Losses continued in earnest on Thursday, halting futures trading before the opening bell in New York.
• After markets opened, the rout again triggered a circuit breaker and halted trading again. All major US indexes were trading more than 8% lower at mid-day.
• Read more on Business Insider.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that markets “are going to be just fine” amid a wild trading season spurred by investor worry over the coronavirus outbreak, CNBC reported. 

Trump’s comments came during a Thursday meeting with Leo Vardakar, the taoiseach of Ireland.

Stocks are mired in a brutal stretch of selling that deepened during Trump’s Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday night. Equity futures declined as he spoke, and investors balked at his 30-day travel ban on foreign nationals traveling from Europe to the US.

They’ve also been left disappointed by a lack of progress on economic stimulus plans, including a potential payroll tax holiday, paid sick leave for hourly workers, and additional loans for small businesses. 

Frenzied futures selling continued early Thursday and triggered a circuit breaker early Thursday morning that halted trading ahead of the opening bell. After the start of trading in New York, stocks continued to plunge and hit another circuit breaker, stopping trading for 15 minutes.

Read more: Famed economist David Rosenberg called the housing bubble. Now he tells us why the oil-price war will be more damaging than the coronavirus — and outlines a scenario where stocks plunge another 13%.

The Dow Jones industrial average is now down more than 2,000 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have each fallen nearly 8%. At the same time, treasuries surged, weighing on yields. 

Investor fears have mounted amid the coronavirus outbreak thought to have originated in Wuhan, China. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization officially declared the outbreak a pandemic, which it defines as a worldwide spread of a new disease. 

So far, COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, has killed more than 4,700 people and infected more than 127,000. While most cases are in China, the virus has spread to more than 100 countries.