Stocks fall to start second quarter, after worst first quarter in history

Stocks opened the second quarter sharply down on Wednesday, following the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s worst first quarter on record from effects of the coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices.

The Dow dropped more than 800 points, or more than 3.9%, by mid-day. The S&P 500 was down 4.1% and the Nasdaq fell 3.7%.

For the first quarter, the Dow lost about 23%, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq losing 20% and 14%, respectively. The losses all came after mid-February, when the indexes were at record high levels.

President Trump and his top medical advisers warned on Tuesday that the U.S. is likely facing anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from the virus.

The payroll company ADP reported on Wednesday that private-sector employers shed 27,000 jobs in March, but even that figure doesn’t show the true picture of job losses for the month. ADP’s cutoff date for compiling the statistics was March 12.

In Washington, Democrats and President Trump are talking about a fourth economic relief package, after Mr. Trump signed a $2.2 trillion rescue plan on Friday. The president now wants to borrow $2 trillion at very low interest rates to rebuild the country’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said he has been holding talks with lawmakers.

“We’ll continue to have those conversations,” he said on CNBC.

But two senior administration officials said the White House isn’t actively preparing for a fourth relief bill, focusing instead on delivering direct payments to workers, and grants and loans to businesses from the current package.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also is pushing for a fourth relief bill, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday that Congress should wait to see the impact of the current package.

“What I disagree with the speaker on is she’s already saying we need to work on phase four,” Mr. McConnell said on the Guy Benson show. “The current law has not been in effect for even a week yet. The Treasury Department’s got a massive, complicated problem here in getting all of this money out rapidly. And the speaker is already talking about phase four. We may need a phase four, but we’re not even fully into phase three yet.”