Rising Virus Fears Leave Trail of Wall St. Carnage

C M Y K Nxxx,2020-03-07,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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Uncertainty Abounds as Recent Decline in Markets Erases $3 Trillion in Wealth

This article is by David Enrich, that the modern world is in an un- James B. Stewart and Matt Phillips. precedented situation. “There’s There is nothing investors hate no playbook for this,” said Derek more than uncertainty. Right now, Devens, a portfolio manager at that is all there is. the fund company Neuberger Uncertainty about the severity Berman. “That’s been really hard and duration of the coronavirus for people to digest.” outbreak, ripping around the The financial mayhem extends world at something like light beyond the stock market. speed. Uncertainty about how the Many companies are essen- global economy will fare as fac- tially frozen in place, unable to tories, airports, stores, schools, predict how the coronavirus entire cities shut down. Uncer- might affect their businesses. tainty about the ability of govern- Their immediate task is to figure ments to contain the disease and out how to keep operating while the power of central banks to making sure their employees are counter its economic fallout. Un- safe. In Silicon Valley, Apple and certainty about how long all this Twitter told people to work from uncertainty will last. home. In New York, Bank of The growing fears have caused America and JPMorgan Chase financial carnage. The S&P 500 in- dispatched small parts of their dex has dropped 12 percent since trading desks to the suburbs so Feb. 19, the sharpest dive in nine they would have backup crews to years. The plunge has obliterated keep business running in an emer- roughly $3 trillion in wealth. gency. In the past two weeks, even de- With the global economy now cent days have been tinted with a poised to shrink, demand for oil is IVOR PRICKETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES scary aura. On Friday afternoon, declining, causing the price of A father and son in a sports stadium being used as an emergency shelter for displaced families in the rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria. the S&P was poised to lose more crude to crater. As investors flee than 2 percent, before the index from risk, gold prices have soared. pared its losses amid a blizzard of The safest assets out there — buying in the moments before the bonds issued by the United States closing bell. (A similar last-minute government — have shot higher Syrians Whose ‘Only Choice Is to Wait for Death’ MULVANEY OUSTED surge the previous Friday made in price. For the first time, the in- an awful week a little less bad.) terest rates on 10-year Treasury government forces backed by For all the heartburn-inducing note shriveled this week to less By CARLOTTA GALL Idlib Is Bracing for the Russian warplanes are closing in, turmoil, the S&P ended this week than 1 percent, falling on Friday to now just five miles away. When AS CHIEF OF STAFF IDLIB, Syria — Before the war essentially flat. a record low of 0.71 percent. they reach Idlib city, its million in Syria, Idlib city, with its tree- Worst as al-Assad’s Market records have been fall- A sudden global disease out- residents are likely to flee, dou- lined avenues and white-stone ing like dominoes. The Dow Jones break is not the kind of risk that bling the number of displaced peo- Freedom Caucus Founder buildings, was known for its calm, Forces Close In industrial average, for example, many market players were ple in the north. provincial air. Elevated in Shake-Up had its biggest single-day point trained to react to. Few investors Dr. Hikmat al-Khatib, an ortho- are epidemiologists. The most so- Today it overflows with families decline (1,191 on Feb. 27) and its phisticated financial models and who fled the war in other parts of at the sound of an explosion. pedic surgeon, urged his parents biggest gain (1,294 on Monday). the fastest-moving trading algo- Syria, swelling the population to But for Syria’s last rebel-held to move to a town to the north. But By PETER BAKER Behind the turbulence are con- when it was bombed his mother nearly a million people. city, the worst is yet to come. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — fusion and anxiety, and a sense Continued on Page A10 Some shelter in bombed-out To the north, nearly a million decided to stay put. President Trump on Friday buildings. Those who can’t find people are living along roadsides “Her words shocked me,” Dr. al- pushed out Mick Mulvaney, his 0 The current downturn from the S&P’s peak a shelter are camped in the soccer and in olive groves in what is al- Khatib said. “The only choice is to acting White House chief of staff, few weeks ago is almost as steep as it was stadium, and more line up outside ready one of the worst humanitar- wait for death.” and replaced him with Represent- during the financial crisis of 2008-09. I made a rare visit into Idlib for food handouts. ian disasters of Syria’s brutal ative Mark Meadows, a stalwart –10% Residents are so used to the nine-year war. with a photographer and inter- conservative ally, shaking up his shelling that no one even flinches To the south and east, Syrian Continued on Page A7 team in the middle of one of the Current biggest crises of his presidency. downturn Mr. Trump announced the –20 –12.2% change on Twitter after arriving in Florida for a weekend at his Mar- Detaining Relatives, Saudi Prince Clamps Down a-Lago estate, choosing to make –30 one of the most significant prince’s willingness to take ex- sination that American intelli- switches he can make in his White traordinary measures to quash gence agencies believe the prince By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK House on a Friday night when –40 and BEN HUBBARD any perceived rival. ordered. most of the country had tuned out Change in the S&P 500 Crown Prince Mohammed first And he has refused to back news for the weekend. As a conso- since each downturn’s peak In a fresh episode of Saudi pal- demonstrated his iron grip on the down from a five-year military in- lation prize, the president named ace intrigue, Crown Prince Mo- kingdom in 2017 by locking up tervention in Yemen that has Mr. Mulvaney a special envoy for –50 hammed bin Salman has detained hundreds of royal relatives and mired the Saudis in a bloody stale- Northern Ireland. three members of the royal family, wealthy Saudi businessmen in a mate and produced a humanitar- Mr. Trump’s decision to push 2008-9 financial including a brother of the king and crisis downturn Ritz-Carlton hotel. ian disaster. out Mr. Mulvaney came as the –60 a former crown prince who had The next year he gained inter- The detentions come at a time –56.8% been potential obstacles to his president confronted a coro- national notoriety by presiding when fears about the impact of the 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 power. navirus outbreak that has unset- over the killing of the journalist coronavirus have slashed the Number of trading days since each downturn’s peak The detentions were the latest tled much of the country, threat- Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi price of oil, the main source of the ened the economy and posed a demonstration of the crown Source: Refinitv THE NEW YORK TIMES Consulate in Istanbul — an assas- Continued on Page A7 new challenge to his re-election campaign. But the decision was seen as a long-delayed move cleaning up in the aftermath of the Senate impeachment trial as he Rough Around the Edges and Staying That Way shuffles his inner circle for the With Test Kits in Short Supply, eight-month sprint to Election Day. Health Officials Sound Alarms By GLENN THRUSH In taking over the White House, and SYDNEY EMBER Mr. Meadows, 60, a retiring Re- Bernie Sanders was several publican from North Carolina, be- This article is by Katie Thomas, matter has impeded our ability to takes into a video delivering a comes Mr. Trump’s fourth chief of Sarah Kliff and Nicholas Bogel- beat back this epidemic,” the offi- message he desperately needed to staff in 38 months, the most that Burroughs. cial said in a letter Friday. convey last fall — that he was any president has had in such a More than 300 cases have been healthy enough to soldier on after short time. His arrival almost President Trump claimed again confirmed, at least 17 have died, his heart attack — when his team surely signals more changes to on Friday that anyone who and thousands are in self-quaran- realized something was not click- follow, as most of Mr. Mulvaney’s needed a coronavirus test “gets a tine. Public health officials are ing. deputies and others on his team test.” But from Washington State warning that no one knows how You have to tell people how you are expected to leave, too, possi- to Florida to New York, doctors deeply the virus will spread, in really feel, one aide chimed in, ac- bly including Emma Doyle, his top and patients are clamoring for part because the federal govern- cording to a person who worked lieutenant, and Joe Grogan, the tests that they say are in woefully ment’s flawed rollout of tests on the shoot. The heart attack not domestic policy adviser. short supply, and their frustration three weeks ago has snowballed only deepened your commitment Hope Hicks, one of Mr. Trump’s is mounting alongside the grow- into an embarrassing fiasco of na- to health reform, the aide said; it most trusted advisers, returns on ing number of cases around the tional proportions. was personal. Monday in a new role working for country. Jared Kushner, the president’s In California, where thousands The latest two deaths were an- Public introspection is not Mr. JORDAN GALE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES son-in-law and senior adviser. Mr. are being monitored for the virus, Continued on Page A11 Sanders’s go-to move. But he gave Senator Bernie Sanders has said he’s not one for pleasantries. it a shot. Near the end of the sev- Mulvaney, who technically re- only 516 tests had been conducted en-minute video posted on his In- tained his post as budget director by the state as of Thursday. Wash- stagram account in October, after one life to live,” an ever-so-slightly what role he wanted to play: him- while serving as acting chief of ington health officials have more CALIFORNIA Twenty-one people swipes at “corporate media” and a choked-up Mr. Sanders said into self. staff, will surrender that, too, and cases than they can currently on a cruise ship off the coast tested pitch for “Medicare for All,” the the camera, standing in a red- “How’d he handle it?” a top po- the acting director, Russell T. process. And in New York, where positive for the virus. PAGE A12 candidate haltingly admitted that walled room at his house in Bur- litical aide, Jeff Weaver, said when Vought, appears poised to take the cases have quadrupled this week, his hospitalization had indeed lington, Vt. “What role do I want to asked how his friend had dealt job permanently, an appointment a New York City official pleaded FESTIVAL CANCELED South by prompted him to take stock. play?” with the health crisis. “He’s he has quietly lobbied for over for more test kits from the C.D.C. Southwest in Austin, Texas, was “Look, I go around once, I have Mr. Sanders had always known Continued on Page A15 Continued on Page A14 “The slow federal action on this scuttled over virus fears. PAGE A10

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