Millions of U.S. Students Affected By School Closings; Dow Plunges 10 Percent for its Worst Day Since 1987 Crash.
CAMEROTA: The longest bull market in U.S. history appears to be over. U.S. stocks had their worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now with more. So, the fact that a bull market is over, we're in a bear market, can it bounce back out of that now?</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't look like it will in the near term because there are forecasts for a recession in the U.S. economy now right now, Alisyn, to be honest. And I want to look at the world markets and futures right now. Everything moving higher. In fact, futures up so high, they stopped the trading up 5 percent, it's called limit up. And that's because there are some hope, maybe there's going to be a stimulus announcement soon, maybe finding some common ground between the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the house. So, look for maybe some stimulus news today. But the story was the bear market now, a ferocious unraveling in the stock market. The Dow down 2,300 points yesterday, more than two and a half years of gains gone, more than 8,000 points in the Dow vanishes in a matter of weeks. The S&P 500, the Nasdaq both down at least 9 percent. OK, guys, think of it this way. The U.S. economy is grinding to a halt on purpose to fight the spread of coronavirus. In fact, managing yourself almost into a recession to prevent even worse public health crisis. Notable economist Mohamed El-Erian tells us a global recession is very likely. Here is how that would happen, let's use sports as an example, the NBA, NHL, March Madness, baseball canceled or delayed. Now, that's not just about players and fans, it's hotel cancellations, empty restaurants, the supply chain before the big events. The vendors, the ushers, the hourly workers who may have to go without pay, they intend have less money to spend, that hurts the economy far and wide. Social distancing has the travel industry in a rough patch, not seen since the days after 9/11. Airlines slashing flights as demand vanishes. Hotel and cruise line bookings have collapsed, some cruise operators are canceling their cruises through May. That means lost sales and likely lost jobs. United Airlines and Delta have hiring freezes already. Norwegian Air temporarily laying off up to half of its workers. Airline stocks this year, you can see it, decimated, major cruise lines down even worse there. Now, thousands of schools have closed, millions of Americans are working from home, when you avoid public places, you hurt sales at restaurants, retailers, malls, any public venues, and you idle the millions of Americans who work there. In short, a stopped economy cannot grow and that will likely lead to recession.</s>BERMAN: You know, I moderated a conference last night, it was initially supposed to be in person, but it ended up being virtual, talking to people in Asia who have been living through this. And there was one banker that I talked to from Hong Kong, they've been working from home for a month. And I said how efficient have you been during this working from home? He said, and he goes, you know, 75 percent, but the cases in Hong Kong are going down --</s>ROMANS: That's right --</s>BERMAN: So it's worth it.</s>ROMANS: This is telling the American public to do something different, to prevent, to flatten that curve. Everyone is talking about flattening that curve, but to prolong this so you don't have real stresses on the public health system. In a sense, it's almost like taking one for the team in a way, you know? I mean, you're trying to really step back now to make sure there's not something worse in the future. And that could risk recession. JPMorgan has a recession call for the first half of the year. There are other calls saying that maybe you see zero growth this year. But here is the important thing. This isn't a financial crisis. This is something -- we can see the end of this. We can see out to later this year and know that the economy is going to grow again and you're going to have some kind of a snapback. So there is --</s>BERMAN: Oh, if we get our -- if we wrap our arms around the public health crisis --</s>ROMANS: If we wrap our arm -- absolutely. And that's why you have all of this social distancing right now and so much work being done ahead of it.</s>CAMEROTA: Can cruise ships see the end of this?</s>ROMANS: I'm not sure about cruise ships. And I know they're really working hard -- I mean, they're idled for two months, that is going to be devastating to earnings and sales. You have all kinds of companies who have just been pulling their guidance to Wall Street, saying we can't see how bad this is going to be. I will say, a lot of economists and companies even have first, second and third grade scenarios, right, of how bad this will be. You know, so when you look at the worst case scenario, they could have no earnings this year. But what if -- what if we do get our hands around this, and what if it's not as bad as we thought, then the snapback later this year will be as ferocious as the sell-off.</s>BERMAN: But plan for the indefinite.</s>ROMANS: Yes --</s>BERMAN: I think --</s>CAMEROTA: Yes --</s>BERMAN: Is the best advice. Christine Romans --</s>CAMEROTA: But so helpful, thank you, Christine --</s>ROMANS: You're welcome --</s>CAMEROTA: You really explained that so beautifully to us. Thanks to our international viewers for watching. END