Dow Jones recorded the worst first quarter in its history

Wall Street stock indexes ended volatile trading today, the last session of the first quarter, amid the worsening economic and health crisis associated with the coronavirus pandemic.

The blue-chip index Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 1.84% to a level of 21,917.16 points, while the broader S&P 500 reported a decline of 1.6% to 2,584.59 points and the technology Nasdaq Composite fell by 0.95% to 7,700.1 points.

The CBOE Volatility Index, which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was down 6.20% to 53.54.

Investors’ focus was on a few news that led to strong volatility during trading. The shares of the banking sector companies went down.

A little earlier this evening, New York reported that the number of coronaviruses in the city had jumped by 14% overnight to over 75,000.

Goldman Sachs said the US economy would go through an unprecedented second-quarter decline, but then recover at the fastest pace in history.

Consumer confidence in the US, on the other hand, dropped to almost a three-year low in March, as households worry about the short-term prospects for the economy amid the negative effects that accompany the coronavirus pandemic, which has seriously hampered Americans’ lives. The US Consumer Confidence Index fell to 120.0 points this month, marking its lowest since July 2017.

The blue-chip index Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded the weakest first quarter in its history, wiping out more than 22% of its value in the January-March period. At the same time, the S&P 500 lost 19.6%, which is the highest percentage decline since the financial crisis of 2008.

In bond markets, yields on 10-year and 30-year US government bonds rose to 0.685% and 1.344%, respectively.

In the foreign exchange trade, the dollar index fell by 0.06% to 99.12 points.

Corporsate stocks performance

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 1,596 to 1,269 and 51 ended unchanged. On the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 1,357 rose and 1,327 declined, while 64 ended unchanged.

Shares in Amarin Corporation PLC fell to 52-week lows, losing 70.54%.

Shares of the banking sector companies went down – the stocks of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America declined by 2.6%, 3%, and 1.7%, respectively.

However, Caterpillar Inc and Dow Inc performed particularly strong in this environment, adding 3.88% and 2.06%, respectively.

The top performers on the S&P 500 were Noble Energy Inc (+13.75%), Cimarex Energy Co (+13.26%) and Diamondback Energy Inc (+11.06%), while on the flipside were DXC Technology Co (-9.63%), VF Corporation (-9.49%) and Kohls Corp (-8.98%).