Market Rout Deepens And Global Economic Fears Rise

AP Business Writers

The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank nearly 1,200 points Thursday, deepening a weeklong global market rout caused by worries that the coronavirus outbreak will wreak havoc on the global economy.

The S&P 500 has now plunged 12% from the all-time high it set just a week ago. That puts the index in what market watchers call a “correction,” which analysts have said was long overdue in this bull market, which is the longest in history.

It was the worst one-day drop for the market since 2011, and stocks are now headed for their worst week since October 2008, during the global financial crisis.

The losses extended a slide in stocks that has wiped out the solid gains major indexes posted early this year. Investors came into 2020 feeling confident that the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates at low levels and the U.S.-China trade war posed less of a threat to company profits after the two sides reached a preliminary agreement in January. The virus outbreak has upended that rosy scenario as economists lower their expectations for economic growth and companies warn of a hit to their business.

“This is a market that’s being driven completely by fear,” said Elaine Stokes, portfolio manager at Loomis Sayles, with market movements following the classic characteristics of a fear trade: stocks are down, commodities are down and bonds are up.

Bond prices soared again, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury to another record low. When yields fall it’s a sign that investors are feeling less confident about the strength of the economy going forward.

More and more companies are warning that the outbreak will hurt their profits. Microsoft warned that the outbreak had interrupted its supply lines, following a similar warning last week from Apple.

Crocs also fell sharply after saying its results would be hurt.

Energy stocks fell sharply as the price of oil dropped 3.4%.

Stokes said the swoon reminded her of the market’s reaction following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“Eventually we’re going to get to a place where this fear, it’s something that we get used to living with, the same way we got used to living with the threat of living with terrorism,” she said. “But right now, people don’t know how or when we’re going to get there, and what people do in that situation is to retrench.”

The virus has now infected more than 82,000 people globally and is worrying governments with its rapid spread beyond the epicenter of China.

At their heart, stock prices rise and fall with the profits that companies make. And Wall Street’s expectations for profit growth are sliding away. Apple and Microsoft, two of the world’s biggest companies, have already said their sales this quarter will feel the economic effects of the virus.

Goldman Sachs on Thursday said earnings for companies in the S&P 500 index might not grow at all this year, after predicting earlier that they would grow 5.5%. Strategist David Kostin also cut his growth forecast for earnings next year.

Besides a sharply weaker Chinese economy in the first quarter of this year, he sees lower demand for U.S. exporters, disruptions to supply chains and general uncertainty eating away at earnings growth.

Such cuts are even more impactful now because stocks are already trading at high levels relative to their earnings, raising the risk. Before the virus worries exploded, investors had been pushing stocks higher on expectations that strong profit growth was set to resume for companies.

The S&P 500 was recently trading at its most expensive level, relative to its expected earnings per share, since the dot-com bubble was deflating in 2002, according to FactSet. If profit growth doesn’t ramp up this year, that makes a highly priced stock market even more vulnerable.

Goldman Sach’s Kostin said the S&P 500 could fall to 2,900 in the near term, which would be a nearly 7% drop from Wednesday’s close, before rebounding to 3,400 by the end of the year.

Traders are growing increasingly certain that the Federal Reserve will be forced to cut interest rates to protect the economy, and soon.

They’re pricing in a nearly two-in-three probability of a cut at the Fed’s next meeting in March.