Coronavirus seems to have spooked markets – and how! While sell-offs was the narrative in equity markets on Friday, plummeting bond yields reflected investors’ massive rush to safety.
On Friday, the S&P 500 lost -1.7%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite dropped -1.0%. Each is down more than -10% from their most recent 52-week high.
On Thursday, the Federal Reserve announced a policy rate cut of 0.5 percentage points. Seen as an emergency move to combat Coronavirus’ economic risks, the rate cut now puts the benchmark rate target at a range of 1% to 1.5%.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury sank to an all-time low of 0.676% at 9:46 a.m. ET Friday. The rate ended at 0.74% that day.