The early trading session on Wall Street opened sharply lower on Tuesday, with major indices losing their value. The Dow Jones Industrial Average went down 136 points, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite lost less than one percent during early trading.
The drop comes amid a mounting number of virus cases both globally and in the United States, where 164,359 people have been infected, with 515 new cases reported on Tuesday so far.
However, US stock futures traded higher on Monday following a massive economic rebound, with all major indices reporting gains.
In a parallel development, European indices also reported losses for the first quarter of 2020, with the UK's FTSE 100 dropping 24.9%, French CAC going down 26%, and Germany's DAX sinking 25.5% - the worst such result for the German index for almost 18 years.
The markets have been fluctuating over the past few weeks following the failure of the OPEC+ group to agree on production cuts and amid rising fears that the new coronavirus outbreak would cause huge damage to the global economy.
OPEC deal failure amid pandemic
The new coronavirus, which originated in China in December 2019, has swept across the entire globe, infecting 789,240 people in almost every nation. Some 38,092 have died since the outbreak became a pandemic and forced countries around the world to undertake tough measures and restrictions to contain its spread.
The virus also sent the global oil market reeling after OPEC members failed to agree on an extension of production cuts beyond March. The expected demand slump has since almost halved oil prices, with major benchmarks falling to record-breaking lows in the past weeks.
