Trump says “be prepared for a very, very painful two weeks” – and the DOW drops 974 points

Stocks kicked off the month of April with a loss, dropping for the 2nd day in a row.

Things looked ugly at the open, with the S&P down almost 4.0%.

There was a glimmer of hope in the morning, with the major indices rallying all morning long.

But stocks dropped again during lunch. And another slide in the afternoon pushed the major indices down to losses of 4.0%+.

A few headlines moving the market…

• Last night President Trump said the U.S. should prepare for a “very, very painful two weeks.” The White House is projecting 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from COVID-19, with a peak in 2 weeks.
• Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that there are now more than 83,000 cases in New York. Cuomo has shut down playgrounds.
• According to John Hopkins University, there are now more than 900,000 COVID-19 cases around the world with more than 200,000 in the U.S.
• The U.S. intelligence community says that China has misrepresented the total number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the country, giving false statistics. A truck driver in Wuhan said he delivered 5,000 urns to a single funeral home last week. But according to official Chinese reports, there are 82,361 confirmed cases in China and 3,316 deaths.

Every sector in the S&P 500 was hit with today’s sell-off (down 3.0%+). But real estate and utilities were hardest hit, down 6.1%.

Today’s drop of 4.4% across the board was the biggest decrease in two weeks.

Here’s where the major indices ended the day:

• The S&P finished with a 4.4% loss. Down 114 points, the S&P ended at 2,471.
• The DOW ended lower by 4.4%. Dropping 974 points the DOW closed at 20,944.
• The NASDAQ was down 4.4%. With a 340 point loss, the NASDAQ finished at 7,359.

Crude Oil (CL) dropped today. With an 0.8% loss, Crude Oil finished at $20.32 a barrel.

But after the standard trading session Crude Oil rallied on news that President Trump is meeting with energy CEOs on Friday to discuss potential ways for the government to help after Crude’s massive slide. The President will meet with CEOs from Chevron (CVX), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), and Exxon (XOM) to name a few.

Boeing (BA) and American Express (AXP) were some of the hardest hit in the DOW, with BA down 12.4% and AXP losing 9.1%.

Marriott (MAR) and other hotel stocks have been hammered because of COVID-19. But adding insult to injury, Marriott lost another 7.6% today after disclosing a data breach that involved 5.2 million customers.

And the S&P 500 lost a long standing member…Macy’s (M) has been removed from the index. Macy’s lost 9.8% today.