Stock market news live: Stocks, yields drop on new coronavirus fears; NY says 11 new cases discovered – Yahoo Finance

The S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq were each off by more than 2%, indicating equities would give back gains after Wednesday’s surge. A still-escalating coronavirus outbreak continued to fuel investor concerns.

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12:50 p.m. Markets hit fresh lows as New York’s coronavirus cases spike

New York’s coronavirus cases have virtually doubled overnight, according to Governor Cuomo, triggering new community spread fears.

The news pushes an already addled market to the day’s troughs, all but giving back Wednesday’s rally, with the 10-yr sinking to a fresh record low of 0.899%.

Here’s where stocks were trading at midday:

• S&P 500 (^GSPC): 3,026.31, down -103.81 or -3.32%

• Dow (^DJI): 26,158.33, down -932.53 or -3.44%

• Nasdaq (^IXIC): 8,753.70, down -264.39 or -2.93%

• Crude oil (CL=F): $46.23, down 0.55 or -1.18%

• Gold (GC=F): $1,666.00, up $23.00 or +1.40%

• 10-year Treasury (^TNX): yielding 0.9010%

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12:45 p.m. ET: Oil dips as OPEC production move seen ‘too little, too late’

OPEC’s move curb crude’s (CL=F) losses was met with a collective yawn by the market, which thinks coronavirus-hit demand (and the selloff in risk assets) will keep prices low. The cartel agreed to a 1.5 million barrel per day cut.

Calling the cut “too little, too late,” Goldman Sachs analysts poked all sorts of holes in OPEC’s thinking:

While this cut agreement was larger than prior guidance – and our assumption of a 1.0 mb/d cut – it remains contingent on the approval of non-OPEC participating countries, especially Russia, which has so far expressed reticence to such a large cut…

…Further, even if ratified, such a cut implies a smaller effective output reduction given (1) the historical pattern of cuts falling short of quotas outside of core-OPEC, and (2) increasingly disappointing global demand readings in January, pointing to weak growth momentum pre-virus. Net, we do not expect today’s OPEC announcement to prevent a global oil market surplus in 2Q nor sequentially lower prices in coming weeks.

Specifically, our April Brent spot forecast remains $45/bbl, with an (unlikely) full implementation of the 0.5 mb/d additional cut proposed today only implying a spot $47/bbl Brent spot price, still below current forwards.

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12:25 p.m. ET: JPMorgan splits up staff as part of coronavirus response

The banking giant (JPM) has begun putting in place emergency risk management measures in London, amid fears about a possible coronavirus outbreak, the latest among big companies moving to prevent the outbreak from affecting operations.

Sales and trading staff in JPMorgan’s markets team were told in a memo that staff would be split between different offices from Monday.

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10:45 a.m. ET: Elizabeth Warren ends 2020 presidential bid

The Massachusetts senator — once considered a 2020 frontrunner and intellectual heir to progressive icon Bernie Sanders — is dropping out of the presidential race.

Warren’s antipathy toward billionaires and investor class made her second only to Sanders as one of Wall Street’s least favorite candidates. Her weak showing on Super Tuesday effectively turned the Democratic race into a two-way battle between the Vermont Senator and former Vice President Joe Biden, who is now considered a prohibitive favorite.

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10 a.m. ET: Freddie Mac 30-year mortgage rate tumbles to record low

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate declined to a record low of 3.29% for the week ending today, touching the lowest level ever reported, according to Freddie Mac.

Mortgage applications rose 10% last week over the same period last year, “and show no signs of slowing down,” Freddie Mac said in a statement.

The report comes a day after the Mortgage Bankers Association said that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 3.57% for the week ending Friday. The mortgage loan application volume during the MBA’s survey week rose 15.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week prior.

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9:38 a.m. ET: Airline stocks slide as travel industry dented by outbreak

U.S. airline stocks sank shortly after market open Thursday, with fears over the coronavirus lowering demand for flights and disrupting airlines’ flight schedules globally. In a new report, the International Air Transport Association said airlines could lose as much as $113 billion in revenue worldwide in 2020, depending on the extent of the outbreak.

Shares of American Airlines were down more than 7% just after the opening bell. United Airlines’ stock was down more than 6%, and shares of Delta Airlines were off about 4.5%.