Stocks dropped Monday as it became clearer that Washington would likely not approve another coronavirus relief package before the election and as the number of COVID-19 cases rose.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 2.65%, or 750.88 points. The drop erased the gains the index made over the past month.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite also suffered losses, with both closing down 1.86% and 1.64%, respectively.
Regarding the relief talks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, met with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier Monday, but they did not strike a deal on another coronavirus relief package.
Pelosi and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday accused the other of changing positions on issues central to getting an agreement on the package.
“We’ve continued to make offer after offer after offer, and Nancy continues to move the goal posts,” Meadows told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union.
Pelosi made a similar comment, saying that “they keep moving the goal posts” in a separate interview on the same CNN program.
Meanwhile, the United States confirmed more than 83,000 new coronavirus cases Friday, the highest daily total of the pandemic.
The weekly average number of new cases reported each day has risen steadily since the first week of October, from about 43,000 to more than 61,000 as of Friday, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. The previous record weekly average was exactly a month ago, with more than 67,000.
