TOLEDO, Ohio — It was another bad day on Wall Street, Monday. The Dow closed down just over 2,000 points. This, after trading was suspended just minutes into the session.
The last time markets tumbled enough to trigger a trading halt was in December 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis.
Things got ugly right out of the gate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 1,800 points within the first minute of trading and the S&P 500 dropped more than seven percent, triggering a trading halt for 15 minutes.
"These are new rules put in place just to give a pause to the market. I think those are good rules to kind of put a pause on trading to let everyone settle down and see where we want to be at. This could happen a few more times going into the future," explained the Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Toledo, Kevin Egan.
Egan said concern over the Coronavirus has impacted the markets the past couple of weeks. Now, add in a dispute between oil-producing nations sparking a price war. It's good for consumers buying gas, but not U.S. oil producers.
"Markets really don't like uncertainty and we have a massive amount of uncertainty right now," said Egan.
So what can we expect? Egan said a recession is likely. Mainly because combating the Coronavirus means Americans won't be spending money.
"To tell people to stay home would hugely be impacting air travel, tourism destinations. Just spending in general. Spending, just average consumption spending, is 70 percent of our economy," said Egan.
As far as your investments, Egan said to think long term. But if you want to take advantage of low prices, now might be the time to buy the dip, although he says its not clear yet when we'll hit the bottom.