NEW YORK — Trading has stopped on Wall Street Monday morning after stocks plummeted sharply immediately after the opening bell.
A so-called circuit breaker was triggered when the Dow Jones dropped 1,884 points.
A circuit breaker is a financial regulatory device that prevents stock market crashes from happening.
Trading will be stopped for approximately 15 minutes.
The steep drop followed similar falls in Europe after a fight among major crude-producing countries jolted investors already on edge about the widening fallout from the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
Indexes in London and Frankfurt dropped by more than 7 percent.
The benchmark for Italy, where the industrial and financial heartland was put in lockdown, fell 11 percent.
Oil prices are down about 20 percent, deepening a rout that began when Saudi Arabia, Russia and other producers failed to agree on cutting output. Bond yields sank to new lows.
