[Click here to read what’s moving markets during the overnight session Wednesday to Thursday]

Stocks were bludgeoned in yet another volatile session on Wednesday, sinking to a three year low with worldwide cases of the coronavirus soaring above 200,000, amid panic selling that nearly wiped out all of the gains made since President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017.

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has forced governments around the world to consider stimulus measures and imposing stiff restrictions to prevent further spreading. However, the economic fallout is already being felt, with several indicators deteriorating sharply, and Wall Street predicting a recession this year.

“There is no longer doubt that the longest global expansion on record will end this quarter,” JPMorgan Chase economist Bruce Kasman wrote in a note on Wednesday. “The key outlook issue now is gauging the depth and the duration of the 2020 recession.”

Wednesday’s volatile session shaved over 1,300 points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which settled below the psychologically-important level of 20,000 — its lowest close since February 2017 and deep in bear market territory. Oil’s demand and supply woes have also dragged the commodity to its lowest levels in nearly two decades.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 plummeted, triggering a market-wide temporary halt to trading before closing down by over 5% on the day. This was the second time in three days the blue-chip index invoked a so-called “circuit breaker” during regular trading, which is intended to prevent extreme losses.

Traders also booked some profits after a brisk rally helped investors recoup some of Monday’s ugly losses that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average sink in its worst day since the Black Monday sell-off of 1987.

[Read more: Coronavirus jitters send Dow swooning to worst-ever point loss, closes at near 3-year low]

The coronavirus pandemic continues to keep investors on edge, as one major economy after the other shuts its borders to stem the outbreak, and considers measures to fight the rising financial and economic disaster that COVID-19 is leaving in its wake.

View photos Coronavirus cases topped 200,000 mark on Wednesday. Over 100 countries are battling the virus. More





The Trump administration is putting the final touches on a fiscal pump-priming package to ward off the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. With both Democrats and Republicans coalescing around the urgent need to backstop consumers, the stimulus is likely to top $1 trillion. On Wednesday, the Senate approved a bill that would pay for sick leave, expanded job benefits and coronavirus testing.

According to Eurasia Group’s Todd Mariano, “the most powerful factor spurring Congress forward will continue to be the deterioration of the U.S. economy as it experiences a historic shutdown. More than anything else, even outweighing electoral considerations, this has served to supersede partisan politics and concentrate minds in lightning fashion over the past ten days, and that will likely continue over the next few weeks.”

Monetary policymakers also stepped in with further stimulus Tuesday. In a move anticipated by many market participants, the Federal Reserve announced Tuesday it would be relaunching its financial crisis-era Commercial Paper Funding Facility, a program helping give U.S. companies increased access to financing amid the pandemic-related disruptions.

Volatility stemming from the outbreak has seen the Dow move up or down by 1000 points or more for 8 straight days, and 11 times total in the last month, according to Yahoo Finance data.