Stock market news live: Dow posts worst quarterly drop since 1987, oil slumps

Stocks ended Tuesday’s session lower, closing out the worst quarter for the Dow since 1987 and its first three-month start to the year on record.

The Dow dropped 23.2% for the year to date, the most since the 25.3% drop seen during the fourth quarter of 1987. The S&P 500 posted a 20% decline, while the Nasdaq dropped 14% over the first three months of the year.

Stocks have swung widely over the past several weeks in particular, with Tuesday’s losses erasing some of Monday’s steep gains as the coronavirus death toll in the U.S. topped those reported in China for the first time.

Separately, overnight Tuesday, better than expected manufacturing sector data from China suggested the country was beginning to recover some economic damage from the outbreak.

A day earlier, stocks had risen after a smattering of positive health-care developments helped blunt some fears surrounding reports of a still-rising coronavirus case count, extended stay-at-home orders, and strained hospital infrastructure in the cities hit hardest by the outbreak. Johnson & Johnson said Monday it planned to begin human tests of its coronavirus vaccine by September, and Abbott Laboratories recently unveiled a five-minute coronavirus test.

Still, both the human impact and business disruptions due to the pandemic have continued to mount around the world. The number of coronavirus cases topped 838,000 globally as of Tuesday, including more than 177,000 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins data.pgslot