US stocks suffer worst sell-off since March amid renewed coronavirus fears

All three major indexes fell more than 5% as signs mounted of a possible second wave of the pandemic

Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street on Thursday as coronavirus cases in the US increased again, deflating recent optimism for a quick economic recovery and raising more doubts about how long the market’s scorching comeback can last. Photo: APShow less

Wall Street plummeted on Thursday as investors reacted to renewed fears of a pandemic resurgence and digested dour economic forecasts from the US Federal Reserve.
All three major US stock indexes were down about 5 per cent, posting their worst day since mid-March, when markets were sent into free fall by the abrupt economic lockdowns put in place to contain the pandemic. The Nasdaq snapped a three-day streak of record closing highs.
The S&P sank 5.9 per cent, while the Nasdaq and Dow sold off 5.3 per cent and 6.9 per cent, respectively. 
Airlines, cruise and travel shares that had soared in recent weeks bore the brunt of the selling. The KBW Bank Index of financial heavyweights slid 9 per cent, and energy producers joined a rout in oil.

"There's really no buy point," Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago, told Reuters. "It's pretty much selling all the way through."
Futures on the S&P 500 recovered slightly on Friday, rising 1.2 per cent as of 1:13pm in Tokyo (8:13am UAE time).
While the "single-day decline could be part of a somewhat bigger pullback", it seems unlikely that the equity market will revisit the levels of the March bottom when the S&P fell 12 per cent, Bank of Singapore analysts said in an investment strategy and research report published on Friday.

While much of the equity selling owed to the frantic pace of the recent rally, sentiment did sour as signs mounted of a possible second wave of the pandemic.

There have now been more than 7.5 million confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide, including over 2 million in the US. Of the 420,000 deaths globally, 113,000 are in the US.
That number could reach 200,000 in September, a grim result of the country's economic reopening before getting growth of new cases down to a controllable level, according to a leading health expert.
At the conclusion of its two-day monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve released its first pandemic-era economic outlook, after which chair Jerome Powell warned of a "long road" to recovery.
"The Fed keeping rates steady through 2022 could give investors the impression that the Fed may be more concerned about the pace of economic recovery than originally anticipated," said Joseph Sroka, chief investment officer at NovaPoint in Atlanta.
Economic data appeared to back up the Fed's gloomy economic projections, with jobless claims still more than double their peak during the Great Recession and continuing claims at an astoundingly high 20.9 million.
A year-on-year drop in core producer prices also reflected the central bank's disinflationary concerns.