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Business Notes: Down Day On Wall Street

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- In today's Business Notes, the "up" one day, "down" the next day pattern continued, with today being a "down" day.

In the morning hours, the markets were on the positive side until New York Governor Andrew Cuomo did what Governor Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania.

Cuomo ordered workers in New York to stay home and not go to work.

When the markets heard that, they turned negative and kept dropping through the rest of the day.

Also not helping, the price of oil dropped again today, rounding out the worst week ever in oil prices.

Investors obviously are focused on what is happening with the coronavirus, not only in terms of what it is doing to the economy but also what Washington is doing to try to help businesses and the American people.

They are waiting, like the rest of us, to see what kind of relief or aid package is coming.

What we do know, is that Walmart plans to hire 150,000 temporary workers nationwide and 5,300 will be hired in Pennsylvania.

There is some interesting news about the economy.

The National Association of Realtors reports home sales were up six and a half percent in February.

And Freddie Mac reports the national average for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 45 percent this week.

However, most analysts expect home sales to plunge this month because of the virus outbreak.

Here now are the closing numbers from Wall Street.

For the day, the Dow lost 913 points or four-and-a-half percent.

The NASDAQ gave up 271 points.

And, the S&P 500 registered a loss of 105 points or four-and-one-third percent.

We have not seen a week like this since 2008, with the Dow losing, for the week, 4,011 points or 17 percent of its value.

The NASDAQ for the week lost 995 points or 13 percent of its value.

And, the S&P 500 was down 406 points or 15 percent for the week.

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