Getty Images / Drew Angerer
- US stocks fell on Friday, failing to extend gains from Thursday’s session. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average suffered their biggest weekly declines since 2008.
- Investor confidence continued to waver, even amid efforts from governments and central banks to prop up major economies, shield jobs, and provide liquidity to markets amid the coronavirus pandemic.
- Oil slid after posting a record-breaking gain on Thursday.
- Read more on Business Insider.
US stocks fell on Friday, failing to continue gains from Thursday as investors remained unsold on widespread actions designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus and protect economies around the world.
The White House is working toward a $1 trillion stimulus package to prop up the US economy, while the Federal Reserve has introduced many emergency measures from its toolkit to provide liquidity to markets reeling from the pandemic.
The equity market’s losses came after a turbulent trading session that saw the Dow Jones industrial average gain as much as 2.2% before reversing midday and closing at intraday lows. Both the Dow and the benchmark S&P 500 suffered their worst weekly declines since the financial crisis in 2008.
Here’s where major US indexes stood at the market close on Friday:
On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that the US-Mexico border would be closed to nonessential travel to try to slow the spread of the virus.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Thursday issued a statewide order for all residents to stay at home. On Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said he would sign an executive order mandating nonessential businesses to keep their workers at home starting Sunday evening.
The market has seen increased volatility this week amid the coronavirus pandemic. The wild swings continued on Friday, a “quadruple witching” day, when stock futures and options expire.
“The markets are trying to assess the current situation and causing us to see panic across different sectors,” Jeremy Bryan, a portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, told Business Insider. Market volatility is ensuing because “at the end of the day, we don’t know with any great certainty what the coronavirus entails or how long we are going to be in this situation,” he said.
Oil slid after rallying on Thursday to its best single-day performance ever. The US dollar has also weakened against a basket of currencies, snapping a rally sparked by investors rushing to the greenback for safety and liquidity.
Uncertainty remains. On Thursday, US jobless claims came in higher than expected, sparking fear that the worst is yet to come during the pandemic. Several major banks, including Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Deutsche Bank, have forecast a US recession in the first half of 2020.
“It’s not a question of whether or not we’re going into a recession — it’s how deep it’s going to be,” Quincy Krosby, the chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, told Business Insider in an interview, “and how much of a stimulus from the government can cushion the removal of the consumer in the economy.”
There have also been calls to halt global markets amid the pandemic, though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday that “everybody” wants them open.
Though Friday’s session was a choppy end to a volatile week, Krosby said markets appeared calmer heading into the weekend.
“It’s been fairly orderly compared to what we’ve seen over the past few trading sessions,” she said, adding that stocks had not been as ferocious on the upside and downside as they were earlier in the week.
“That’s comforting,” she added, “even if we end in the red.”
