By Geoffrey Smith
- Grim economic data and bank earnings sent U.S. stocks sharply lower at the opening Wednesday, undoing gains made on Tuesday in the hope that the U.S. is getting on top of the coronavirus epidemic.
By 9:34 AM ET (1334 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 506 points, or 2.1%, at 23,443 points. The S&P 500 was down 2.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.8%. They had posted rises of between 2.4% and 4.0% on Tuesday, all hitting their highest levels in over a month.
The market was brought down to earth by the biggest-ever monthly drop in retail sales in March, a set of data that didn't even include the full impact of the lockdowns that have been imposed across the country in stages. Retail sales fell by 8.7%, with autos and discretionary items hit particularly hard. Core sales, which exclude autos, fell by a slightly better-than-expected 4.5%.
There was equally bad news from the nation's factories. Industrial output fell 5.4% in March, another number that far exceeded even the worst monthly falls during the 2008/9 recession. Manufacturing output fell even more acutely, by 6.3%. The Empire State Manufacturing index, which tracks factory activity in New York state, likewise plummeted to a record low of -78.2.
Those numbers were also reported in a raft of sharp falls in earnings at the country's biggest banks, which all reported spikes in provisions against bad loans. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) stock fell 5.4% and Citigroup (NYSE:C) stock fell 4.5%.
There was more positive news from the airline sector, where stocks rose across the board in response to the bailout agreement secured late on Tuesday with the federal government.
