trail of wall st. carnage rising virus fears leave...2020/03/07  · curry back; warriors aren t...

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There is nothing investors hatemore than uncertainty. Right now,that is all there is.

Uncertainty about the severityand duration of the coronavirusoutbreak, ripping around theworld at something like lightspeed. Uncertainty about how theglobal economy will fare as fac-tories, airports, stores, schools,entire cities shut down. Uncer-tainty about the ability of govern-ments to contain the disease andthe power of central banks tocounter its economic fallout. Un-certainty about how long all thisuncertainty will last.

The growing fears have causedfinancial carnage. The S&P 500 in-dex has dropped 12 percent sinceFeb. 19, the sharpest dive in nineyears. The plunge has obliteratedroughly $3 trillion in wealth.

In the past two weeks, even de-cent days have been tinted with ascary aura. On Friday afternoon,the S&P was poised to lose morethan 2 percent, before the indexpared its losses amid a blizzard ofbuying in the moments before theclosing bell. (A similar last-minutesurge the previous Friday madean awful week a little less bad.)For all the heartburn-inducingturmoil, the S&P ended this weekessentially flat.

Market records have been fall-ing like dominoes. The Dow Jonesindustrial average, for example,had its biggest single-day pointdecline (1,191 on Feb. 27) and itsbiggest gain (1,294 on Monday).

Behind the turbulence are con-fusion and anxiety, and a sense

that the modern world is in an un-precedented situation. “There’sno playbook for this,” said DerekDevens, a portfolio manager atthe fund company NeubergerBerman. “That’s been really hardfor people to digest.”

The financial mayhem extendsbeyond the stock market.

Many companies are essen-tially frozen in place, unable topredict how the coronavirusmight affect their businesses.Their immediate task is to figureout how to keep operating whilemaking sure their employees aresafe. In Silicon Valley, Apple andTwitter told people to work fromhome. In New York, Bank ofAmerica and JPMorgan Chasedispatched small parts of theirtrading desks to the suburbs sothey would have backup crews tokeep business running in an emer-gency.

With the global economy nowpoised to shrink, demand for oil isdeclining, causing the price ofcrude to crater. As investors fleefrom risk, gold prices have soared.The safest assets out there —bonds issued by the United Statesgovernment — have shot higherin price. For the first time, the in-terest rates on 10-year Treasurynote shriveled this week to lessthan 1 percent, falling on Friday toa record low of 0.71 percent.

A sudden global disease out-break is not the kind of risk thatmany market players weretrained to react to. Few investorsare epidemiologists. The most so-phisticated financial models andthe fastest-moving trading algo-

Rising Virus Fears LeaveTrail of Wall St. Carnage

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

This article is by David Enrich,James B. Stewart and Matt Phillips.

Source: Refinitv THE NEW YORK TIMES

–60

–50

–40

–30

–20

–10%

0

Currentdownturn–12.2%

2008-9 financialcrisis downturn

–56.8%

100500 200150 300250 350

Number of trading days since each downturn’s peak

The current downturn from the S&P’s peak a few weeks ago is almost as steep as it was during the financial crisis of 2008-09.

Change in the S&P 500since each downturn’s peak

Continued on Page A10

IDLIB, Syria — Before the warin Syria, Idlib city, with its tree-lined avenues and white-stonebuildings, was known for its calm,provincial air.

Today it overflows with familieswho fled the war in other parts ofSyria, swelling the population tonearly a million people.

Some shelter in bombed-outbuildings. Those who can’t findshelter are camped in the soccerstadium, and more line up outsidefor food handouts.

Residents are so used to theshelling that no one even flinches

at the sound of an explosion.But for Syria’s last rebel-held

city, the worst is yet to come.To the north, nearly a million

people are living along roadsidesand in olive groves in what is al-ready one of the worst humanitar-ian disasters of Syria’s brutalnine-year war.

To the south and east, Syrian

government forces backed byRussian warplanes are closing in,now just five miles away. Whenthey reach Idlib city, its millionresidents are likely to flee, dou-bling the number of displaced peo-ple in the north.

Dr. Hikmat al-Khatib, an ortho-pedic surgeon, urged his parentsto move to a town to the north. Butwhen it was bombed his motherdecided to stay put.

“Her words shocked me,” Dr. al-Khatib said. “The only choice is towait for death.”

I made a rare visit into Idlibwith a photographer and inter-

Syrians Whose ‘Only Choice Is to Wait for Death’By CARLOTTA GALL

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.IVOR PRICKETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Idlib Is Bracing for theWorst as al-Assad’s

Forces Close In

Continued on Page A7

Bernie Sanders was severaltakes into a video delivering amessage he desperately needed toconvey last fall — that he washealthy enough to soldier on afterhis heart attack — when his teamrealized something was not click-ing.

You have to tell people how youreally feel, one aide chimed in, ac-cording to a person who workedon the shoot. The heart attack notonly deepened your commitmentto health reform, the aide said; itwas personal.

Public introspection is not Mr.Sanders’s go-to move. But he gaveit a shot. Near the end of the sev-en-minute video posted on his In-stagram account in October, afterswipes at “corporate media” and apitch for “Medicare for All,” thecandidate haltingly admitted thathis hospitalization had indeedprompted him to take stock.

“Look, I go around once, I have

one life to live,” an ever-so-slightlychoked-up Mr. Sanders said intothe camera, standing in a red-walled room at his house in Bur-lington, Vt. “What role do I want toplay?”

Mr. Sanders had always known

what role he wanted to play: him-self.

“How’d he handle it?” a top po-litical aide, Jeff Weaver, said whenasked how his friend had dealtwith the health crisis. “He’s

Rough Around the Edges and Staying That WayBy GLENN THRUSH

and SYDNEY EMBER

Senator Bernie Sanders has said he’s not one for pleasantries.JORDAN GALE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A15

In a fresh episode of Saudi pal-ace intrigue, Crown Prince Mo-hammed bin Salman has detainedthree members of the royal family,including a brother of the king anda former crown prince who hadbeen potential obstacles to hispower.

The detentions were the latestdemonstration of the crown

prince’s willingness to take ex-traordinary measures to quashany perceived rival.

Crown Prince Mohammed firstdemonstrated his iron grip on thekingdom in 2017 by locking uphundreds of royal relatives andwealthy Saudi businessmen in aRitz-Carlton hotel.

The next year he gained inter-national notoriety by presidingover the killing of the journalistJamal Khashoggi inside the SaudiConsulate in Istanbul — an assas-

sination that American intelli-gence agencies believe the princeordered.

And he has refused to backdown from a five-year military in-tervention in Yemen that hasmired the Saudis in a bloody stale-mate and produced a humanitar-ian disaster.

The detentions come at a timewhen fears about the impact of thecoronavirus have slashed theprice of oil, the main source of the

Detaining Relatives, Saudi Prince Clamps DownBy DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

and BEN HUBBARD

Continued on Page A7

President Trump claimed againon Friday that anyone whoneeded a coronavirus test “gets atest.” But from Washington Stateto Florida to New York, doctorsand patients are clamoring fortests that they say are in woefullyshort supply, and their frustrationis mounting alongside the grow-ing number of cases around thecountry.

In California, where thousandsare being monitored for the virus,only 516 tests had been conductedby the state as of Thursday. Wash-ington health officials have morecases than they can currentlyprocess. And in New York, wherecases have quadrupled this week,a New York City official pleadedfor more test kits from the C.D.C.

“The slow federal action on this

matter has impeded our ability tobeat back this epidemic,” the offi-cial said in a letter Friday.

More than 300 cases have beenconfirmed, at least 17 have died,and thousands are in self-quaran-tine. Public health officials arewarning that no one knows howdeeply the virus will spread, inpart because the federal govern-ment’s flawed rollout of teststhree weeks ago has snowballedinto an embarrassing fiasco of na-tional proportions.

The latest two deaths were an-

With Test Kits in Short Supply,Health Officials Sound Alarms

This article is by Katie Thomas,Sarah Kliff and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs.

Continued on Page A11

The smoke produced by the blazes thatravaged Australia may ruin entirevintages, winemakers say. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-12

‘Like Licking an Ashtray’Instead of the French coast, surfers in2024 will head to Tahiti and some of theworld’s most dangerous waves. PAGE B9

SPORTSSATURDAY B9-12

Olympians Face ‘Wall of Skulls’

Lisa Nandy, running to lead Labour,offers a different set of party priorities.The Saturday Profile. PAGE A6

Speaking to Britain’s North

A union said a policy that diverts mi-grants to Guatemala illegally sendsvulnerable people to a place where theyare likely to be persecuted. PAGE A13

NATIONAL A13-19

Asylum Officers Object to DealA collection of online stores offer mur-der for pay. Researchers say they areschemes, but people who want someonedead aren’t listening. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-8

Hit Men for Hire? It’s a ScamA Hillary Clinton documentary revisitssome much-told history but has insightabout the public fixation on her. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

A Warrior Under Her Armor

Green Bank, W.Va., has a telescope sobig it needs near radio silence, a techno-logical curb that has created a strangekind of modern childhood. PAGE A18

Face in Books, not Facebook

An analysis of the primary results sofar shows Michigan might not be asfavorable to Bernie Sanders as it wasfour years ago. PAGE A16

No Lock on Michigan

Target-date funds hold your invest-ments steady amid your impulses toreact to market changes. PAGE B1

Protecting You Against You

Facing the effects of climate change,Shinnecock Indians use nature-basedsolutions to protect their land. PAGE A20

NEW YORK A20-21

Fighting Nature With NatureIn Stephen Curry’s return from a longinjury absence, Golden State lost afinals rematch to Toronto. PAGE B9

Curry Back; Warriors Aren’tCharlie Warzel PAGE A24

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A24-25

A nearly $200 million renovation hasshut the famed theater for two years,the first closing in its history. PAGE C1

Sydney Opera House Silenced

FESTIVAL CANCELED South bySouthwest in Austin, Texas, wasscuttled over virus fears. PAGE A10

CALIFORNIA Twenty-one peopleon a cruise ship off the coast testedpositive for the virus. PAGE A12

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —President Trump on Fridaypushed out Mick Mulvaney, hisacting White House chief of staff,and replaced him with Represent-ative Mark Meadows, a stalwartconservative ally, shaking up histeam in the middle of one of thebiggest crises of his presidency.

Mr. Trump announced thechange on Twitter after arriving inFlorida for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate, choosing to makeone of the most significantswitches he can make in his WhiteHouse on a Friday night whenmost of the country had tuned outnews for the weekend. As a conso-lation prize, the president namedMr. Mulvaney a special envoy forNorthern Ireland.

Mr. Trump’s decision to pushout Mr. Mulvaney came as thepresident confronted a coro-navirus outbreak that has unset-tled much of the country, threat-ened the economy and posed anew challenge to his re-electioncampaign. But the decision wasseen as a long-delayed movecleaning up in the aftermath of theSenate impeachment trial as heshuffles his inner circle for theeight-month sprint to ElectionDay.

In taking over the White House,Mr. Meadows, 60, a retiring Re-publican from North Carolina, be-comes Mr. Trump’s fourth chief ofstaff in 38 months, the most thatany president has had in such ashort time. His arrival almostsurely signals more changes tofollow, as most of Mr. Mulvaney’sdeputies and others on his teamare expected to leave, too, possi-bly including Emma Doyle, his toplieutenant, and Joe Grogan, thedomestic policy adviser.

Hope Hicks, one of Mr. Trump’smost trusted advisers, returns onMonday in a new role working forJared Kushner, the president’sson-in-law and senior adviser. Mr.Mulvaney, who technically re-tained his post as budget directorwhile serving as acting chief ofstaff, will surrender that, too, andthe acting director, Russell T.Vought, appears poised to take thejob permanently, an appointmenthe has quietly lobbied for over

MULVANEY OUSTEDAS CHIEF OF STAFF

Freedom Caucus FounderElevated in Shake-Up

By PETER BAKER

Continued on Page A14

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,625 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 2020

Late EditionToday, windy, turning out sunny,high 45. Tonight, clear, chilly, low 34.Tomorrow, mostly sunny, chillystart, milder afternoon, high 58.Light wind. Weather map, Page B12.

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