Despite the Fed taking unprecedented action to stop this historic sell off, the Dow was still down further again 582 points at close, though earlier it was down almost a thousand again so we’ll take any good news we can get.  Though the general consensus is that the Fed’s action is very necessary and will help a great deal to help the recovery once this crisis is over, what is really needed right now is the Congress to pass the stimulus package, which was expected today but did not happen, and thus the sell off.  As today’s expert says, “What we really need to turn things around is a sense of closure – not on the virus, but on the response to the virus.”  


The virus we have limited control over but complete control over the response.  So the market today sent the message to Congress – Get With It!  The S&P is now down 34% from the February high and the predicted plunge in Q2 GDP has changed dramatically in the past few days, today declared by Goldman Sachs at 24%, putting us on the path for our worst month since World War II, another trigger for the continued selloff.  A few days ago we were just having our worst month since 2008, so quickly are things changing.  Volume was 15.7 billion indicating selling is dying down just a little bit.  The Surgeon General says this is going to be a very grim week.  It sure looks that way. 

mon  MARCH 23, 2020 / 4:17 pm 

Historic Fed boost fails to stop Wall Street's virus-driven sell-off

Noel Randewich

DJ:  19,173.98  -913.21        NAS:  6,879.52  -271.06        S&P:  2,304.92  -104.47    3/20

DJ:  18,591.93  -582.05        NAS:  6,860.67  -18.84          S&P:  2,237.40  -67.52      3/23

(Reuters) - Wall Street’s slide deepened on Monday as the rapidly spreading coronavirus forced more U.S. states into lockdown, overshadowing unprecedented moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve to shore up credit across the economy.  After recently cutting interest rates to near zero, the Fed will now lend against student loans and credit card loans, as well as back the purchase of corporate bonds and make direct loans to companies.  Announcement of the extraordinary measures briefly lifted U.S. stock index futures before Monday's trading session began, but the mounting death toll from COVID-19 and a tide of lockdowns more U.S. states quickly sent the main indexes into the red, putting the S&P 500 .SPX on pace for its worst month since World War Two.

 “What the Fed did is important because it does help in the credit markets. But it’s not enough from an equity market perspective,” said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. “What we now need is leadership out of Congress to pass some sort of stimulus bill, because what the Fed’s doing is relieving some problems, but it doesn’t do enough to solve to solve what’s out there.”

Investors had hoped the U.S. Senate would clear a $1 trillion-plus coronavirus stimulus package over the weekend, but Democrats and Republicans were still scrambling to come to an agreement.  Maryland, Ohio, Louisiana and Delaware joined New York and California in asking people to stay home, foreshadowing a near halt in economic activity and more pain for U.S. equities, and prompting several analysts to slash their growth forecasts.

Goldman Sachs expects an outright contraction in global real gross domestic product in 2020 on the back of a 24% plunge in U.S. real GDP in the second quarter: two-and-a-half times as large as the previous post-war record.  The S&P 500 has experienced a $9 trillion wipeout to its value since the benchmark index hit a record high last month. A rush for safe-haven assets like government bonds caused U.S. Treasury yields to fall on Monday.

The S&P 500 is down about 34% from its February record high, its lowest level since fears of the coronavirus swept across Wall Street.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI dropped 3.12% to end at 18,576.04 points, while the S&P 500 .SPX lost 2.96% to 2,236.7. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 0.27% to 6,860.67, its overall decline cushioned by a 3.07% rise in Amazon.com (AMZN.O).   “What we really need to turn things around is a sense of closure - not on the virus, but on the response to the virus,” said Stephen Massocca, senior vice president at Wedbush Securities in San Francisco. “Once the market sees that, I think the market will rebound considerably.” 

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.18-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.62-to-1 ratio favored decliners.  The S&P 500 posted no new 52-week highs and 224 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded two new highs and 525 new lows. 

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 15.7 billion shares, just shy of the 15.8 billion-share average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.