Plummeting Oil Prices and Ongoing Coronavirus Worries Sparked a Panic Driven Sell-Off Globally

US Markets: Broader indices in the United States traded in red - particularly, the S&P 500 index traded 228.37 points or 7.68% lower at 2,744.00, Dow Jones Industrial Average Index contracted significantly by 2,016.46 points or 7.80% lower at 23,848.32, and the technology benchmark index Nasdaq Composite traded lower at 7,950.68, down by 624.94 points or 7.29% against its previous day close (at the time of writing, before the U.S market close at 4:05 PM ET).

US News: On 9^th March 2020, after drop in the oil prices by more than 22 per cent, the Dow Jones Industrials collapsed by 2,000 points and Wall Street's main indexes declined by around 7 per cent in Monday’s trading session. The global financial markets still recovering from the coronavirus outbreak, got ripples as the Saudi Arabia's decided to increase oil production after collapse of supply cut agreement between Russia and OPEC. In almost last three decades, the Crude oil recorded worst day and crashed to its lowest level since the 1991 Gulf War. Worldwide confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpassed 110,000, causing severe supply disruption. The US 10-year treasury yields tanked to 0.318 per cent in Monday’s trading session. Among the US stocks, the major oil giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp witnessed a decline of around 9 per cent each, while the energy index (SPNY) declined by 20.1 per cent. Boeing Co. shares were tumbled by around 13 per cent, led by Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) rejection of the planemaker's proposal with respect to wiring systems in place on its grounded 737 MAX aircraft. Apple shares were hammered by around 6.8 per cent, as the group sold lesser than 500,000 smartphones in China (Feb month) due to the coronavirus outbreak.

S&P 500 (SPX)

Top Performers*: Cabot Oil & Gas Corp, Autozone Inc, and O’Really Automotive Inc are top gainers and increased by 12.43%, 3.05% and 2.33% respectively.

Worst Performers*: Diamondback Energy Inc, Apache Corp, and Marathon Oil Corp are the top three laggards and decreased by 45.24%, 40.68% and 33.97% respectively.

NASDAQ Composite (IXIC)

Top Performers*: Vaxart Inc, LightPath Technologies Inc, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc are top gainers and increased by 29.69%, 25.81% and 23.35% respectively.

Worst Performers*: Molecular Data Inc, Centennial Resource Development Inc, and Oasis Petroleum Inc are the top three laggards and decreased by 79.86%, 56.74% and 52.27% respectively.

Worst Performing Sectors*: Energy (down 20.66%), Financials (down 6.81%) and Basic Materials (down 6.58%).

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI)

Top Performer*: Walmart Inc (up 0.87%).

Worst Performers*: Dow Inc, Chevron Corp, and JPMorgan Chase & Co are top laggards and decreased by 15.40%, 10.31% and 10.19% respectively.

European Markets: The London’s broader equity benchmark index FTSE 100 traded at 496.78 points or 7.69% lower at 5,965.77, the FTSE 250 index snapped 1,199.36 points or 6.40% lower at 17,547.15, and the FTSE All-Share Index ended 266.09 points or 7.39% lower at 3,334.86 respectively. Another European equity benchmark index STOXX 600 ended down by 27.30 points or 7.44 per cent, at 339.50.

European News: In economic news, the British public expectation on public inflation has fell to a joint three year low as per a survey done by Citibank and YouGov. As per the survey, the one year ahead expectations stood at 2.3 per cent while expectations for inflation in period between five and ten years stood at 3.0 per cent.

In company news, Diversified Gas & Oil Plc today reported its full year financial results for the year 2019, reporting a revenue growth of 59.5 per cent. In today’s trade on the London Stock Exchange however, the company lost nearly 9.09 per cent of its share value amidst all round selling across the stock exchange.

London Stock Exchange

Top Performers*: BH GLOBAL LD (BHGG), PETRA DIAMONDS LD (PDL) and BH MACRO LD (BHMG) are top gainers and increased by 4.92%, 4.40% and 2.54% respectively.

Worst Performers*: PREMIER OIL PLC (PMO), TULLOW OIL PLC (TLW) and CAIRN ENERGY PLC (CNE) plunged by 52.73%, 27.44% and 25.58% respectively.

FTSE 100 Index

5 days FTSE 100 Index Performance (March-09-2020), before the market closed (Source: TR)

Top Gainer*: TESCO PLC (TSCO) traded in green zone and leapt up by 0.58%.

Top Slackers*: AVEVA GROUP PLC (AVV), BP PLC (BP.) and CENTRICA PLC (CNA) were among the beaten down stocks and plunged by 18.47%, 17.91% and 14.97% respectively.

Shares with high volume*: (LLOY) LLOYDS BANKING GROUP PLC; (BP.) BP PLC; (BARC) BARCLAYS PLC.

Sectors in the negative zone*: Energy (down 15.71%), Basic Materials (down 10.42%), and Technology (down 8.64%).

Currency Rates*: GBP/USD and EUR/GBP were trading at 1.3107 and 0.8739, respectively.

Bond Yields*: U.S 10-Year Treasuries yield was hovering at 0.559%, and the UK 10-Year Government Bond yield was trading at 0.157%, respectively.

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*At the time of writing