Top Things to Know in the Market on Thursday, April 2nd

• 2020-04-02
• Traiding Idea

Dow Jones dropped 900 points as Wall Street fears Coronavirus will shut down the economy longer than expected

Global stocks continued to plummet after President Donald Trump announced that the United States should prepare for a ''very, very painful two weeks'' and the death toll of the Coronavirus will rise sharply in the country. White House officials predict that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans will die from Coronavirus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 973.65 points or 4.4% to close at 20,943.51. S&P 500 also dropped 4.4% to 2,470.50. The Nasdaq composite returned to 7,360.58, with a drop of 4.41%.

In the last hour of trading on Wednesday, the U.S. stocks fell sharply, with the Dow briefly falling more than 1,100 points.

European stock markets

Almost all of Europe has been shut down due to the spread of the Coronavirus. The situation in Italy, the eighth largest economy in the world and Spain, Europe's fifth-largest economy, is the worst.

In London, the FTSE 100 index fell 0.67 % and closed at 5,491.36. French CAC 40 index rose 0.46 % and closed at 4,226.65 points.

Also, Germany's DAX 30 index surged 0.29 % to 9,572.36 points. In Spain, the IBEX 35 index dropped 0.38% to 6,554.10.

Asian stock markets

In Asia, stock indices also performed poorly. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 1.37% and closed at 17,818.52. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 0.84% to 23,280.76.

In China, with the release of robust economic data, stock declines were limited and Shanghai Composite advanced 1.62% to 3,734.53.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index fell 1.98% and ended at 5,154.30. Among other major Asian indices, TOPIX (Tokyo Stock Price Index) was down.

oil market

While more cities in the world are quarantined every day due to the Coronavirus and the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia continues, oil prices have fallen more than 65% so far this year.

Crude oil futures rose 10% on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he expected Saudi Arabia and Russia to reach an agreement to end their oil price war soon.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate ( WTI ) futures surged 7.43%, to settle at $21.82 per barrel. Brent crude futures rose 8.29%, to $26.79 per barrel.