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| - Wall Street stocks tumbled again Friday, with petroleum producers and banks falling especially hard, as worries over the coronavirus overshadowed a strong US jobs report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished well above session lows, but still lost 1.0 percent 25,864.78. The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 2,972.37, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 1.9 percent to 8,575.62. Traders essentially ignored strong US jobs data for February, viewing the report as outdated and not representative of an economy now pressured by worries that include supply chain disruption in China, a contraction of global travel and anxiety that fear of illness will stifle the consumer-driven US economy. Demand remained elevated for secure assets such as bonds, with the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note falling to a fresh all-time low. "There's definitely some panic out there," said Nate Thooft, a portfolio manager at Manulife Investment. "A lot of this is uncertainty. No one actually does know how severe it is, how broad the ramifications will be when it comes to the repercussions on the economy." Stocks were in the red the whole day, but rallied somewhat late in the session, with the Dow recovering about 600 points in the last hour of trading. "At some point in time, you satiate the selling pressure," said Art Hogan of National Securities, adding that there is a growing consensus "the US will slip into a recession and that it will be shallow." Petroleum-linked shares sank as oil prices dove about 10 percent after Russia balked at a production-cutting agreement with OPEC. Dow member Exxon Mobil slumped 4.8 percent, while mid-sized oil producers such as Devon Energy and Apache plummeted 15 percent or more. Large banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase lost four percent or more as investors anticipated additional stimulus moves by the Federal Reserve following this week's surprise interest rate cut. The beaten-down travel and tourism sector had a mixed day, with cruise ship giant Carnival down 2.6 percent, but United Airlines and Marriott International both finishing higher. jmb/cs
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