U.S. stock market futures fell sharply shortly after electronic trading began late Sunday, suggesting further losses when trading begins Monday, following the worst week on Wall Street since 2008.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00, -1.24% fell more than 300 points, and S&P 500 futures ES00, -1.22% and Nasdaq Compoosite futures NQ00, -1.19% were also down more than 1%.
Stocks fell for a seventh straight day Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.39% shed 357.28 points, or 1.4%, to settle at 25,409.36, while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.82% dropped 24.54 points, or 0.8%, to end at 2,954.22. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.01% gained less than a point to finish at 8,567.37.
All three indexes fell into correction territory, widely defined as a drop of at least 10%, but no more than 20%, from a recent peak, as fears of the spreading coronavirus outbreak rattled investors. The virus is starting to affect global trade and travel and lowering expectations about earnings and economic growth.
The World Health Organization’s director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged Sunday that global financial markets be calm. “We need to continue to be rational. Irrationality doesn’t help. We need to deal with the facts,” he said at an event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In the U.S. on Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar urged calm as they sought to reassure the American public as more cases were reported across the country. Pence and Azar said thousands of COVID-19 test kits were being distributed to state and local officials, with more to come.
On Saturday, the nation’s first coronavirus death was reported in Washington state.
