money Market Recap: Wednesday, October 28
Stocks dropped sharply Wednesday, indicating another volatile session on Wall Street as investors nervously digested elevated coronavirus case counts in the U.S. and Europe, weighed outcomes of Election Day next week and contemplated when another round of fiscal stimulus out of Washington might get passed. The Final Round panel breaks down the details.
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to The Final Round here on Yahoo Finance. I'm Seana Smith. We have stocks right around session lows here. With just around 20 seconds left in the trading day, the Dow off just over 900 points. We've seen the broader markets under a tremendous amount of pressure for the entire trading day. S&P off just over 3%. The NASDAQ is also right around its lows of the day, off just around 3.6%. All 11 of the S&P sectors are in the red.
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And that does it for the trading day today. Again, all three of the major averages closing off over 3%. We saw some selling action here in the final hour of trading with stocks right around their lowest levels of the day. As we do close out the trading day, the VIX right around 38, 39. We did briefly spike above 40 earlier today, showing some of the concern, some of the volatility that we've seen in the market today.
Of course, the big drivers today are the rising COVID cases, not only here in the US, but also what we're seeing play out overseas in Europe. And then also some concerns around the election. We heard Keith Lerner last hour talking about that, how it's those two factors here that are really driving some of the skittishness, some of the nervousness that we're seeing in the market today.
I mentioned all 11 of the S&P sectors are in the red as we close out the day. Technology and communications services are among the worst performers. Now this a trade that typically holds up when we see coronavirus cases spike, at least that has been the case over the last several months. But today, those two sectors under a good amount of pressure.
On the defensive side of things, REITs, for example, also in the red. SL Green, Balsam Properties, those two stocks hitting their lows today.
Energy, the XLE hitting its lowest level actually since early March. We have oil closing off just over 5%, right above $37 a barrel, names like Devin and Marathon Oil right around the lows of the day.
