The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wall Street’s week stays wild
Steep drops ease in last hour of trading Friday amid Fed hints of help.
A dizzying week of trading dropped one last round of harrowing swings on investors Friday.
After skidding sharply through the day as fear pounded markets, steep drops for stocks and bond yields suddenly eased up in the last hour of trading amid hints from Federal Reserve officials that they may offer more support to the economy.
By the end of trading, the S&P 500 had more than halved its loss for the day to 1.7%. It’s the latest lurch in a wild ride that has sent stocks flipping between huge gains and losses. Investors are trying to guess how much economic damage the coronavirus will ultimately inflict, and they’re shifting by the minute as central banks and governments offer stimulus on one end and the number of new infections piles up on the other.
All the uncertainty has left markets churning.
“It’s anyone’s guess at this point why it rallied into the close,” Adam Taback, chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank, said of the last hour of Friday’s trading.
Earlier in the day, the S&P 500 had been down 4%. Even more alarming was another breathtaking drop in Treasury yields to record lows.
The 10-year Treasury yield falls when investors are worried about a weaker economy and inflation, and it sank below 0.70% at one point. Until earlier this week, it had never in history been below 1%. It was at 1.90% at the start of the year.
On Friday, the S&P fell 51.57 to 2,972.37. After all the smoke cleared, it rose 0.6% for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 256.50, or 1%, to 25,864.78. The Nasdaq fell 162.98, or 1.9%, to 8,575.62.
Benchmark U.S. crude tumbled $4.62, or 10.1%, to settle at $41.28 per barrel. It was the worst day for oil in more than five years.