Market Recap: Monday, March 23

Stocks sank to new lows on Monday, as world policymakers race to contain the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, with the recent selloff wiping off years of gains off the Dow and S&P, sending them to the lowest closing levels since 2016.

Video Transcript

JEN ROGERS: Hi, I'm Jen Rogers. Welcome back to Yahoo Finance live. The closing bell coming up here momentarily. Again, we've been watching stocks selling off here today. News out of Washington has not been, you know, very constructive to this market today. We have tried to get this stimulus bill off of the blocks two times. That has not happened.

Jess Smith is in DC. I'm sure we'll be getting more from her later. Myles Udland is in New York City watching this market into the final moments of the bell.

MYLES UDLAND: Yeah, Jen, if you take a look at the market right now, I guess we could say off the lows, but factually we are off the lows. The NASDAQ right now actually peeking into green figures. About 30 seconds to go in today's trading session. We'll kind of see where things settle out, and then we'll talk to Jared Blikre in a little bit. But if you look at the VIX right now, you know, maybe just some more constructive signs for this market. The VIX getting hit a little bit here, kind of holding in the low 60s right now. We've seen the VIX in the low 80s a couple days ago.

We're looking now at a--

[CLOSING BELL]

And that was the closing bell on Wall Street coming in loud and clear there. Of course, this is the first time we've seen it close at the New York Stock Exchange in a couple hundred years with no one down there on the floor. A momentous day if for no other reason than this is the day the computers officially took over down on the floor of the exchange.

We'll see where the numbers shake out here. Does look like all three majors are going to finish in the red. The NASDAQ does look set to finish in red figures, off about 3/10 of 1%. Some bigger damage done in the Dow, off 3%. The NASDAQ down just under 3%.

You know, Jen, we talked about it earlier in the program of is there any sense of this turning around? What are we waiting for? And I think given how the Fed responded this morning for-- ooh, I guess it's the sixth time that we've heard a Fed announcement since March began, or I guess since February 29. It's clearly not about the Fed right now. We need something out of lawmakers.

JEN ROGERS: Yeah, it's not about the Fed. And I think everybody I talked to today, no matter if they complained about the Fed before-- and, you know, everybody can kind of put themselves in that camp at one time or another. Really, to a person, I think people think the Fed is moving quickly, doing everything within its power to back up the American and, dare I say, the global economy right now. Jay Powell is getting applause from a lot of corners. But what's happening in the halls of Congress is a different story. People really want to get that squared away.

Just, you know, on the bell here, looking at names that kind of came back and just sectors too. And by the way, that was some bell. You know, I've never seen any one like that. XLC and consumer discretionary almost flat. They-- we-- in here that the video-game names, Netflix-- we were just talking about that. Netflix up almost 10% here. Live Nation-- we've said no one is going to be going to live events anymore. Live Nation able to add on nearly 9%. And consumer discretionary, it's not going to come as too big of a surprise. Hasbro a name that came out today saying, you know, look, things are going OK in the toy area. Having some nice gains here, up over 12%.

MYLES UDLAND: And, you know, to that point though, Jen, looking at some of those names that did OK today or just some outstanding performances, I'm looking at the consumer basket that I've had my eye on for quite a while here. Worst performer or one of the worst performers in that group was McDonald's. That stock was down about 7% today.

And if you just kind of look at-- you know, we talked earlier about the names that have held up OK. Visa down 7.4% today. So you're seeing some names that have done OK getting sold here, and I think it does still speak to this liquidation-driven market behavior that we've seen over the last couple of weeks.

Let's bring in Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Andy Serwer right now for more on today's market action. And, Andy, I guess we're talking about the market, but it's so obvious that right now the market is waiting for what we might hear out of Washington. Any signs of life there? And we're going to be just kind of beholden to whatever does or does not happen there until we can settle this thing down.

ANDY SERWER: Yeah, although Washington has not been very good to the market and to investors so far, Myles. And, you know, you guys were pointing down. The Dow is down 3% today. I actually think we kind of dodged a bullet because this reminded me of 2008 when we failed to pass TARP the first time around. Congress did, I should say. And the market just plunged after that.

So the fact that, you know, we're not gone to pieces here, maybe it speaks to the fact that we've already-- you know, we're down very significantly since the beginning of the year, now down 30%. So, you know, that's cold comfort.

You know, you've got the IMF saying-- coming out today and saying that this could be worse than 2008-2009. You've got the OECD saying the economic damage caused by the coronavirus will be with us, quote, "for a long time to come." So, you know, there's very little to hang your hat on.

And when you're talking about those stocks-- just getting back to that briefly-- you know, and all that disruption, dislocation, and repricing when it comes to people trying to figure out what these companies are worth, that's exactly what's gone on. What are these companies worth in a pandemic world? And, you know, we've had this. Now we know this can happen. They're not going to go away. You know, one stock up today big time, for instance, is Regeneron, which is up what? 4% today, which is up about 22% year to date. And so everything is being called into question right now.