Courtesy of Pam Martens
Screenshot of Graphic and Headline at CNBC, Thursday, February 27, 2020
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 28, 2020 ~
Going into Thursday morning, February 27, this was the situation on Wall Street:
- The stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, had already lost a total of more than 2,000 points in the prior three days of trading;
- Stock futures were showing a big loss at the open of trading on Thursday;
- News reports had proliferated overnight of the coronavirus spreading around the globe as well as a case in California suggesting it was now loose in the community.
For most folks, that would have been enough bad news to digest with their morning coffee. But it wasn’t for the folks at Goldman Sachs. At 8:12 a.m. yesterday morning, CNBC ran the above graphic and headline: “Goldman sees zero earnings growth for US companies this year because of coronavirus.”
Bank of America also apparently felt it was necessary to throw a little more gasoline on the smoldering stock heap. As 8:25 a.m. this headline appeared at CNBC: “The global economy is heading for its worst year since the financial crisis, Bank of America says.”
By 10:34 a.m., the Dow was down by more than 900 points. By the closing bell, the market had suffered its largest point loss in history, closing down 1,190.95 (4.42 percent) and bringing the four-day loss to more than 3,000 points. (On a percentage decline basis, October 19, 1987 is by far the worst single day in Dow history: the market lost 22.6 percent but back then that represented only 508 Dow points.)
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