A renewed plunge in financial markets on Wednesday ended an 11-year bull market for the Dow Jones industrial average as the economic threat posed by the coronavirus outbreak came into stark relief.
As policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic appeared unwilling or unable to mount an aggressive response to the crisis, the Dow closed with a loss of nearly 6 percent. That brought its decline from its most recent peak less than a month ago to more than 20 percent — the definition of a bear market.
The broader S&P 500 was down nearly 5 percent for the day, but shy of bear territory.
The full economic toll of the outbreak — now officially a pandemic — will not be clear for months. But there is mounting evidence that it will be severe. Airlines are warning of empty planes and huge financial losses. A sharp drop in oil prices is threatening to put energy companies out of business and thousands of American drillers out of work. Supply-chain bottlenecks are forcing factories around the world to cut output, even as a slump in consumer confidence is raising doubts that there will be demand for their goods once production resumes. » | Ben Casselman | Wednesday, March 11, 2020
