Media Giants Brace for Another Wild Day on Wall Street as Markets Plunge
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UPDATED: U.S. equities markets opened sharply lower on Thursday amid the global scramble to address the growing coronavirus pandemic.
Global markets were rattled by the news delivered on Wednesday night from President Donald Trump the U.S. would temporarily ban most travel from Europe to the U.S. as a means of trying to contain the spread of the virus in the U.S.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 1,600 points at the start of trading. The S&P 500 plunged nearly 7%, leading to a 15-minute halt in trading after just five minutes as per the “circuit breaker” system designed to slow panicky sell offs. The NASDAQ fell more than 550 points, or 7.2%.
Major media conglomerates were hammered once again amid the downturn. Disney was off more than 10% at the start of trading, bringing its share price below $100 for the first time since May 2018. ViacomCBS, Comcast and AT&T were down in the 6%-7% range in early trading. Netflix dropped as much as 9% and stock of large tech companies Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook were down 4%-5%.
Amid the free-fall in stocks, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced Thursday afternoon that it was injecting $1.5 trillion into the market via short-term loans starting with a $500 billion tranche March 12 at 1:30 p.m. ET. “to address highly unusual disruptions in Treasury financing markets associated with the coronavirus outbreak.”
As of Wednesday, the U.S. was officially in bear market territory as the Dow has fallen more than 20% from its recent high. The U.S. had enjoyed a stellar run of bull market conditions since May 2009, when the recovery began to kick in from the most recent recession spurred by the sub-prime mortgage loan crisis of 2007-08.
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