US stocks ended sharply lower on Monday, with the Dow posting its worst point drop in history and falling to its lowest level in nearly three years. Worries mounted that central banks’ emergency measures over the weekend meant the economy is in much worse shape than previously believed.

Instead of soothing the markets, another emergency interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve had the opposite effect.
Stocks tripped a circuit breaker at the New York open, with the S&P 500 (SPX) falling more than 7%. Trading was halted for 15 minutes.

The market remained in the red all day and sold off further in the last hour of trading, as President Donald Trump said the coronavirus outbreak could last until July or August.

The S&P 500 closed down nearly 12%, while the Dow (INDU) fell 12.9%, or 2,997 points, down. The index hasn’t been this low since May 2017.

The Nasdaq Composite (COMP) closed down 12.3%.

Click to expand...

President Donald Trump said Monday that the White House is evaluating whether to encourage isolation measures, such as a quarantine or curfew, in certain novel coronavirus “hotspots” around the country, but is not considering issuing those measures nationwide.

“At this point, not nationwide, but … we may look at certain areas, certain hotspots, as they call them. We’ll be looking at that,” Trump said during a White House press briefing.

But the President added that no decisions had been taken regarding a national curfew. “We haven’t really determined to do that at all and hopefully we won’t have to,” he said. “That’s a very big step.”

“It’s a step we can take, but we have not decided to do it,” he added.

The comments come amid active discussions within the Trump administration to encourage a possible “curfew” across the nation in which non-essential businesses would be encouraged to close by a certain time each night in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to an administration official and another source familiar with the matter.

Click to expand...