The coronavirus has been causing some significant damage to the stock market in the last couple of weeks as it has started affecting businesses across the nation.

Many companies have even been pushing for more workers to telecommute to work rather than coming in and risking exposing themselves to the virus.

To add to that, we now have an oil price war going on between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

With those two big events happening, it caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop drastically, closing down over 2000 points from yesterday.

According to NBC News,

Wall Street took a beating on Monday, as collapsing oil prices and fears about the impact of the coronavirus almost nudged the American economy out of the longest bull market in history, exactly 11 years to the day since it began.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day with a loss of around 2,000 points Monday, part of a global market rout that saw spiraling sell-offs in the energy sector amid the biggest drop for crude oil since the Gulf War in 1991. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq saw a decline of around 7 percent for one of the worst days since the financial crisis.

Crude oil prices cratered by 25 percent after the world’s producing countries failed to strike a deal at a meeting between oil cartel members in Vienna last week. The stalemate continued over the weekend, with Saudi Arabia and Russia reportedly planning to ramp up production on their own terms after the current deal expires at the end of the month. By Monday morning, traders on Wall Street were bracing for a meltdown.

The ensuing sell-off prompted action from the White House, with Wall Street executives scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump on Wednesday to discuss the response to the outbreak.

U.S. Treasurys were the beneficiary of the flight to safety with heavy buying pushing longer-dated yields lower by more than 30 basis points. Overnight, the benchmark 10-year yield fell to a record low of 0.38 percent before bouncing to 0.501 percent at the close. Likewise, the 30-year yield plunged below 1 percent for the first time ever, and was down 27.8 basis points to 0.938 percent.

The drop in Treasury yields accompanies expectations the Federal Reserve will cut rates by 100 basis points at its March 18 meeting, lowering its key interest rate to a range between 0 and 25 basis points.

Sources:
Fox Business | NBC