Wall Street sees red at opening, moving towards its worst week since 2008 - France 24

New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange plunged at the opening Friday, preparing to end its worst week since the global financial crisis of 2008 against a backdrop of heightened fears around the coronavirus.

Around 2:45 p.m. GMT, the Wall Street star index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, lost 2.16% to 25,211.15 points.

The Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, fell by 1.90% to 8,403.78 points.

The S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, fell 2.08% to 2,016.67 points.

Wall Street had fallen sharply Thursday as a wind of panic continued to blow in New York, worried about the rate of spread of the epidemic of viral pneumonia and its economic consequences: the Dow Jones had collapsed by 4 , 42%, losing nearly 1,200 points, and the Nasdaq by 4.61%.

By giving up more than 10% since the start of the week, the New York market has entered the correction zone.

In a particularly chilly market, investors once again turned massively to bonds, considered less risky than stocks.

The 10-year rate on US debt thus once again reached an all-time low, at 1.1535%, on the night of Thursday to Friday, as did the 30-year rate on US Treasury bills, which fell to 1.6606%.

For Patrick O'Hare of Briefing, the bond market rush and weak global stock markets are a reflection of "concerns about the spread of the coronavirus as well as its ability to seriously harm global economic growth and growth prospects for businesses, especially if the epidemic accelerates in the United States and Europe. "

The list of countries affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, which appeared in China, continued to grow with the first case in sub-Saharan Africa, detected in Nigeria. In Germany, a thousand people have been quarantined in the west of the country.

Many events have also been canceled around the world, including the annual Facebook developer conference (-1.5%) scheduled for early May in California.

Among the Dow Jones stocks, Caterpillar, often seen as a gauge of global growth, fell 1.6%. Apple (-5.8%), Chevron (-2.5%), Nike (-1.8%) and Disney (-2.8%) were also down.

Among the indicators, inflation in the United States remained almost stable in January compared to December, at + 0.1%, but slightly lower than analysts' expectations, according to the PCE index published on Friday.

© 2020 AFP