Stormy Monday: Crude Oil, Coronavirus, Repo Drench Markets

Monday, March 9, 2020

The global coronavirus pandemic scare now has a partner in roiling markets all over the world this morning: a fallout in OPEC negotiations on crude oil output has led to Saudi Arabia making deep cuts to prices per barrel and increasing output, in a direct offensive to Russia, which refused to cooperate with the Saudis’ plan to lower crude production in an attempt to firm oil pricing. Oil markets fell 10% Friday on the news, and on Sunday, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) said that global oil price war could send prices down to $20 per barrel.

This morning, we see domestic oil indexes West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent Crude tumbling 23% at this hour. The entire industry is awash in red this morning, with Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO) down nearly 40% in pre-market trading this Monday. This follows a 12% sell-off on Friday, and light years behind the $14+ per share Marathon enjoyed at the start of 2020.

Combined with the coronavirus outbreak, called COVID-19, which so far has reported 111K cases worldwide, with more than 3800 deaths (22 deaths reported in the U.S. as of this morning), the New York Fed has decided to get proactive in allowing for adequate market liquidity should these global crises seize up access to capital: the 2-week and overnight repo — methods to help keep the Fed funds rate within range of targets help by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) — going to $45 billion from $20 billion and $150 billion from $100 billion, respectively.

This, in turn, has brought Treasury yields to new all-time lows, including a 10-year at a jaw-dropping 0.32% yesterday. This figure has buoyed back up somewhat since then, but is still in record-low territory.

Thus, we open our eyes to a Dow Jones index down 1300 points in today’s pre-market, down 5%. This follows Japan’s Nikkei index, which also fell 5% Monday, while indexes across Europe continue to drop, with the Italy FTSE off 10% from Friday’s close. The Nasdaq is down 450 points at this hour, led by downward trades on FAANG stocks anywhere from -5% to -7%. The S&P 500 is down 150 points.

Should the S&P hit a 7% sell-off, the index will halt trading for 15 minutes. Should it fall 13% in a session, it will halt another 15 minutes. Should the S&P 500 sell off by 20%, trading will be halted for the remainder of the trading day. Thus far in its current form, these triggers have never been fired.

Mark Vickery
Senior Editor

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