U.S. stocks took back some of the losses incurred earlier on Friday, but the week was nevertheless the worst for the S&P 500 since the 2008 financial crisis, thanks to fears about the effects of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed nearly 1,000 points earlier on Friday and was down 3.69%. At closing, the index was down 1.36%.
Declines in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite also occurred early Friday as both indexes dropped by more than 3%. At closing, the indexes pared those losses with the S&P 500 closing down 0.83% and the Nasdaq closing up 0.01%, respectively.
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Friday marks the seventh day that the U.S. indexes have lost value.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sought to reassure markets that the central bank would protect the economy from fears over the coronavirus outbreak, signaling that the central bank would cut interest rates if needed.
“The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong,” Powell said in an unscheduled statement Friday. “However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity.”
Powell’s statement comes on the heels of Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard on Friday said that further interest rate cuts were possible to counter the damage the coronavirus outbreak could wreak on the economy.
“Further policy rate cuts are a possibility if a global pandemic actually develops with health effects approaching the scale of ordinary influenza, but this is not the baseline case at this time,” he said in remarks prepared for the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce.
