OMG, the panic selling continued today with the Dow dropping nearly 1100 points in the morning, then rebounded only to drop again in the afternoon, then rebounded only to drop again just before close.  The trigger was again new cases of coronavirus in California and six more countries on four continents falling victim for the first time today.  But then the Fed said it would “act as appropriate” to provide support and that provided sufficient reassurance to trigger a buying spree in the final half hour so that the Dow closed only 357 down, instead of another thousand. But if there’s more bad news over the weekend, there’ll be another bad day on Monday.  The WHO has raised the risk alert now to its most severe category “Very High.”  The next major milestone in this crisis will be if there is an outbreak here in the U.S.  The VIX hit almost 50 today, but settled down to 40 by close.  Volume was extreme at over 19 billion. 

fri  FEBRUARY 28, 2020 / 5:16 pm 

S&P falls for seventh day, suffers biggest weekly plunge since 2008 crisis

Sinéad Carew

DJ:  25,766.64  -1,190.95       NAS:  8,566.48  -414.29       S&P:  2,978.76  -137.63    2/27

DJ:  25,409.36  -357.28          NAS:  8,567.37  +0.89           S&P: 2,954.22  -24.54      2/28

New York (Reuters) - The S&P 500 fell for the seventh straight day on Friday and the benchmark index suffered its biggest weekly drop since the 2008 global financial crisis on growing fears the fast-spreading coronavirus could push the economy into recession, although stocks regained some ground right at the end of a volatile session.  The Dow and the Nasdaq also registered their deepest weekly percentage losses since October 2008.  The Nasdaq managed to eke out an 0.01% gain after plunging as much as 3.5% during the session. After falling as much as 4.2% - more than 1,000 points - the Dow ended the day down 1.4%.

But, after the bell, S&P 500 e-mini futures EScv1 were up about 1% and the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF was up 1.3% in extended trade.  On Thursday, all three indexes had confirmed corrections by finishing more than 10% below their closing record highs.

Equities found some support after U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the fundamentals of the American economy remained strong and that the central bank would act as appropriate to provide support.  But investors had spent most of the day dumping equities for the safety of U.S. Treasuries, pushing 10-year yields to their fourth record low this week. [US/]

The virus spread further on Friday, with cases reported for the first time in at least six countries across four continents, battering markets and leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to raise its impact risk alert to “very high.”  Some investors voiced concerns about heading into a weekend where they could not trade on new reports about the virus.  “To get an all-clear sign, the market needs evidence it’s under control, no flaring up in new countries and that we don’t get a significant outbreak in the United States,” said Jack Janasiewicz, chief portfolio strategist for Natixis Investment Managers.  Janasiewicz saw the spread of the virus China as a prompt to reduce exposure to riskier assets, and said the next milestone for further risk cuts would be a U.S. outbreak.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 357.28 points, or 1.39%, to 25,409.36; the S&P 500 .SPX lost 24.54 points, or 0.82%, to 2,954.22; and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 0.89 point, or 0.01%, to 8,567.37.  The CBOE volatility index, also known as Wall Street’s fear gauge ended the day near its session low, up 0.95 point at 40.11, after rising as high as 49.48. 

Of the S&P’s 11 major sectors, the rate-sensitive financial index .SPSY weighed the most on the benchmark S&P 500 index, ending the day down 2.6%. The utilities sector .SPLRCU was the S&P’s biggest percentage loser with a 3.3% drop. Real estate .SPLRCR and consumer staples .SPLRCS - also rate-sensitive sectors that are often seen as safe havens - both fell more than 2%.   Yet the energy .SPNY, technology .SPLRCT and communications services index .SPLRCL all showed gains for the day.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.39-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.95-to-1 ratio favored decliners.  The S&P 500 posted no new 52-week highs and 129 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 19 new highs and 538 new lows.

Trading was brisk on U.S. exchanges with 19.31 billion shares changing hands compared with a 9.25 billion-share average for the last 20 days.