Coronavirus: Stocks On Pace To End March With Historical Losses

Mar. 31--Shares of Bay Area companies such as Tesla and Apple edged upward Tuesday as stocks headed toward an end of three months of historical stock market volatility brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average kept rising, and then falling into the red, and was recently down by 115 points, or 0.5%, at 22,212.55. If those losses held, the Dow would end March down by 12.6%, and would finish the first quarter of 2020 with a loss of 22.2%, its worst first-quarter performance in history.

The nation's two other major market gauges also slipped into the red Tuesday, with the S&P 500 down by 0.6%, at 2,611.33, and the Nasdaq Composite Index slipping 0.1%, to 7,763.84.

"This quarter ends one of the darkest chapters Wall Street and consumers worldwide have seen in the last century with uncertainty abound," said Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities. Ives said the recent market gains suggest investors are "trying to look ahead to the other side of this dark valley."

Among local companies, Tesla shares rose more than 5.3%, to $528.49. Anticipation began to grow over Tesla's upcoming quarterly vehicle delivery and production report, which is expected to come out before the end of the week.

Apple shares edged up by 0.5%, to $256.09, graphics chipmaker Nvidia was down by almost 1%, at $263.5 a share, Twitter slipped by 1%, to $25.35 a share, Netflix shares rose 1.2%, to $375.33 and Google parent company Alphabet was up by 1%, at $1,157.93 a share.

Whether the market has bottomed out remains to be seen, and the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy may be only beginning.

"The first quarter appears to be the start of a one-to-two quarter economic and unemployment apocalypse," said Wedbush's Ives.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs said Tuesday that they estimate U.S. unemployment will soon reach 15%, and the nation's gross domestic product -- or, the value of all goods and services produced in the country -- will fall by a massive 34% in the second quarter because of coronavirus shock to the economy. However, Goldman analysts estimates that the economic recovery would be the fastest in U.S. history.

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