Coronavirus Drives Stocks Down for 6th Day

On Thursday, analysts at Goldman Sachs predicted that companies in the SP 500 would generate no profit growth as a result of the crisis, because of a “severe decline in Chinese economic activity,” disruption in the supply chain for American companies and a slowdown in the United States economy.

Microsoft were down nearly 3 percent after the company said on Wednesday that its sales in the current quarter would be lower because of a disruption to its supply chain. Anheuser-Busch InBev on Thursday forecast a steep drop in quarterly profit. Its shares fell 8 percent.

Companies have also scaled back travel. The French cosmetics giant L’Oreal suspended all business travel for its 80,000 employees until the end of March. Nestlé, the giant Swiss-based food company, said it would suspend all international business trips for its 290,000 workers until mid-March.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 in Britain, the CAC 40 in France and the DAX in Germany were all more than 3 percent lower on Thursday. Asian markets closed the day largely down, though shares in China bucked the general trend, with Shanghai rising 0.1 percent.

Kevin Granville and Katie Robertson contributed reporting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/business/stock-market-coronavirus.html