Wall Street fell again on Friday, erasing all the gains that stocks have made since President Donald Trump took office. The market's benchmarks plunged deeper into bear market as the S&P 500 lost 15% for the week and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 17.3% for the same time period.
The coronavirus's continued spread has led to a stop to normal American life. COVID-19 has brought the mass closure of private businesses, soaring unemployment and has become a major threat to the heath of the global economy. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) echoed the earlier statements made by Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) on Friday; the world's largest economy is already in a recession.
"We expect declines in services consumption, manufacturing activity, and building invest to lower the level of [growth] in April by nearly 10%," the in vestment firm stated on Friday. Goldman predicts that the U.S. economy will contract by 24% in the second quarter before rebounding in the second half of 2020's fiscal year.
Here's how the market closed to end the week:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): -4.34% or -104.47 points to 2,304.92
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): -4.55% or -913.21 points to 19,173.98
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): -3.79% or -271.06 points to 6,879.52
In Major Stock News, many travel stocks--United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL), American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL), MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM), Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN), Marriott (NASDAQ: MAR) and Hilton (NYSE: PK)--bounced Friday amid the new market sell-off. Technology stocks, like major players Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), rose but later fell as more Americans are ordered to remain in their homes.
In Stock Sector News, every sector besides, surprisingly, Energy +0.96%, fell into deeper lows on Friday. The performance losses were as follows: Utilities -8.18%, Consumer Staples -6.53%, Real Estate -5.48%, Industrials -5.04%, Communication Services -4.63%, Information Technology -4.42%, Health Care -4.08%, Materials -3.53%, Financials -3.27% and Consumer Discretionary -2.71%.
Lastly, in Commodity and Currency News, Wall Street's fresh sell-off on Friday accelerated crude oils losses, leading to a -20.89% drop for West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) and a -2.53% change for Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO). Benchmark barrel prices not range between $19-$28 each. Gold (NYSE: GLD) posted a good amount of gains on Friday, with the metal's price increasing +2.13%. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) lost some of its recent strength on Friday, with the DXY Index dropping -0.56%.