US stocks plunged again Wednesday as Wall Street waited for the Trump administration’s plans to address the economic impact of the coronavirus, which is now a global pandemic.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted as much as 1,218.43 points, or 4.8 percent, erasing the 1,100-point surge the blue-chip index saw Tuesday on hopes of a fiscal stimulus. It was recently off 1,175.11 points, or 4.7 percent, at 23,843.05.

The S&P 500 dropped as much as 4.3 percent and the Nasdaq composite lost as much as 4 percent after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. The WHO has reported more than 118,000 confirmed cases of the virus in 114 countries.

Goldman Sachs expects the tumble will soon bring an end to the longest bull market on record. The bank projected Wednesday that the S&P 500 will drop 15 percent from its current level to 2,450 points by the middle of the year before rebounding in the fourth quarter.

President Trump promised a “very dramatic” fiscal stimulus package on Monday to stanch the economic bleeding caused by the coronavirus outbreak. But he failed to deliver specifics of such a package Tuesday even after meeting with Senate Republicans.

“The problem facing markets today … is that precisely zero concrete policies have emerged,” Jeffrey Halley, a senior currency analyst at OANDA, wrote in a commentary . “Extra spending and where it is spent must be approved by Congress, and I suspect therein lies the problem.” reports. Trump has suggested that the stimulus may include funding for sick leave, aid for the struggling airline and cruise ship industries, and temporary cuts to payroll taxes. The president went so far as to float temporarily eliminating the payroll tax for employees and employers through the rest of 2020 in his meeting with GOP lawmakers, according to news

But Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called a payroll tax cut a “non-starter” that won’t be included in a coronavirus response bill headed for a Thursday vote in the chamber.

“The market was probably overly hopeful thinking a stimulus package was coming, thinking that Washington was riding to the rescue,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank. “But when they turned around and thought about it there’s little that even a payroll tax cut could do to bolster the economy at this point.”

Wall Street is primarily looking for signs the government will step in rather than any particular measure — but the politics of a stimulus deal could hamper efforts to encourage investors, according to Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group.

“In order to get anything done you’re gonna have to get both sides of the aisle and that sort of limits I think what you can do,” Paulsen said. “It’s not like the president can enact a corporate tax cut, for example.”

The drop in US stocks came after the Bank of England cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point to 0.25 percent. That could spur hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut rates further at its meeting next week after slashing them last week, Rupkey said.

But Joe Biden’s victories in several Democratic presidential primaries Tuesday night didn’t appear to comfort investors even though his strong Super Tuesday performance inspired a bounce in the market last week.

The drop in US stocks came after the Bank of England cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point, following a similar move by the Federal Reserve last week. Joe Biden’s victories in several Democratic presidential primaries Tuesday night didn’t appear to comfort investors even though his strong Super Tuesday performance inspired a bounce in the market last week.

Wednesday’s declines continued another turbulent week for Wall Street that started with the Dow shedding more than 2,000 points as an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia added to the market’s fears about the coronavirus outbreak.

Oil futures tumbled again Wednesday as the US Energy Information Administration said commercial crude oil inventories increased by 7.7 million barrels in the week ending March 6.

Brent crude futures were down 2.7 percent at $36.20 a barrel as of 12:55 a.m., while West Texas Intermediate futures were recently off 2.8 percent at $33.39 a barrel.

With Post wires