NEW YORK - The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented stimulus measures did little to brighten Wall Street’s immediate outlook on coronavirus-ravaged stocks, as concerns remained about the lack of a government stimulus package and the ability to contain the pandemic.
The moves have helped ease a liquidity squeeze in funding markets and signaled that the Fed was willing to take extraordinary steps in order to boost the economy. But investors said the Fed’s measures alone are unlikely to stem the stock market’s decline. The S&P 500 has plunged more than 30% in 22 trading days — the fastest such drop in its history, according to BofA Global Research.
Many have been disconcerted by lawmakers’ inability to enact an economic stimulus package that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said carried a $2 trillion price tag. The stimulus package failed to advance in the U.S. Senate on Monday as Democrats said it contained too little money for hospitals and not enough restrictions on a fund to help big businesses.
Initial estimates of the pandemic’s economic fallout have grown bleaker in recent days. U.S. unemployment could hit 30% and second-quarter economic output could be half the norm, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard told Reuters in an interview. Morgan Stanley equity strategist Michael Wilson said in a note on Monday that his base case was for a 13% decline in earnings for S&P 500 companies this year.
Such is True. The Eruption of The Coronavirus ...Sheds Very Useful Light, Upon The Unprecedented Need, For The World to Create An Entirely New Way of Life?
Of course...