Wall Street Begins Week in a Foul Mood

Wall Street is off to a decidedly rough start in the new week. A slew of bad news reports on everything from the coronavirus to a banking scandal seems to have investors in the mood to sell, reports CNBC and the AP. In the first hour of trading, the Dow had fallen more than 800 points, about 3%, to below 26,900. The S&P 500 was down 2.5%, and the Nasdaq was down more than 2%. Meanwhile, a major indicator of market volatility—the Cboe Volatility Index—was at its highest level in about two weeks, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Renewed tensions between the US and China weren't helping. Beijing's Ministry of Commerce says it's weighing penalties against "unreliable entities," without mentioning specifics. "There's the broader macro risk that this might be China starting to become more combative in its use of sanctions," says Edward Park of Brooks Macdonald. "That wasn't really on the markets' radar." Asian and European stocks fell ahead of Wall Street's rough morning. (More stock market stories.)