NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks careened lower Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrials sinking more than 1,400 points, as investors became more fearful that the Trump administration and other global governments won’t be able to prevent the coronavirus outbreak from doing significant damage to the worldwide economy.
The Dow’s loss dragged it 20% below the record set last month and put the index in a bear market. The broader S&P 500 index, which professional investors watch more closely, is a single percentage point away from falling into its own bear market, which would end the longest bull market in Wall Street history.
The decline has been one of the swiftest sell-offs of this magnitude. The fastest the S&P 500 has ever fallen from a record into a bear market was over 55 days in 1987.
Vicious swings like Wednesday’s session are becoming routine as investors rush to sell amid uncertainty about how badly the outbreak will hit the economy. The day’s loss of 1,464 points wiped out a 1,167-point gain for the Dow from Tuesday and stands as the index’s second-largest point drop, trailing only Monday’s plunge of 2,013.
With Wall Street already on edge about the economic damage coming from the virus, stocks dove even lower Wednesday after global health officials declared the outbreak a pandemic.