Month: March 2020

These measures halt trading during excessive market drops.

When it drops by 7 or 13 percent, trading will stop for 15 minutes.

But when the market plunges to a Level 3 with a 20 percent freefall, trading stops for the entire day.

A rebound later in 2020 could be aided by extreme steps taken by global central banks to restore confidence and keep markets functioning.The Federal Reserve has embarked on two emergency rate cuts this month, including one late Sunday that sent rates back to zero. The Fed has also promised to pump in trillions of dollars of cash into financial markets and relaunched its 2008 crisis-era bond buying program known as quantitative easing.

Goldman Sachs warns US stocks could plunge another 16% before rapidly recovering. Goldman Sachs is warning clients that the S&P 500 could bottom at 2,000 by midyear, marking a 41% plunge from the record highs set just a month ago. The Wall Street bank expects stocks to rapidly recover before the end of the year.

Almost nothing was left unscathed — even safe-haven assets like gold dropped 0.9 per cent to $US1,503.50 an ounce. Investors seeking a safe-haven in precious metals will be sorely disappointed in gold’s performance. It shed 1.75%, while silver sunk 12% into the $12 handle. Oil, already slammed by a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, slumped to less than $US30 a barrel in early trading to lows last seen in early 2016.

There was further policy easing on Monday from the Bank of Japan, in the form of a pledge to ramp up purchases of exchange-traded funds and other risky assets.