U.S. stocks ended the first week of March slightly higher, but the path to get there was extremely volatile. The first four days of the week saw the S&P 500 Index move at least 2.9% each day amid heightened fears around the coronavirus and increasing U.S. recession odds. The boost to investor sentiment from the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) emergency rate cut on March 3 was short-lived.

The Dow Industrials held up best among the four major U.S. stock indexes we track, while the small cap Russell 2000 Index fared the worst. Growth style held up better than value. Sector dispersion was high as defensive and interest-rate sensit

While stock markets continue to be extremely volatile as they come to terms with how the coronavirus may affect global growth, the U.S. job market has remained remarkably robust. Continued U.S. jobs data resilience in the face of headwinds from the coronavirus outbreak may be a key factor in prolonging the expansion, given how important the strength of the U.S. consumer has been late into this expansion.

The U.S. Department of Labor today reported that U.S. nonfarm payroll data had a strong showing of 273,000 jobs added in February, topping the expectation of every Bloomberg-surveyed economist, with an additional upward revision

Despite strong market gains on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, the on-the-run 10-year Treasury yield ended the day below 1% for the first time ever and has posted additional declines in real time, sitting at 0.92% intraday as this blog is being written. “The decline in yields has been remarkable,” said LPL Research Senior Market Strategist Ryan Detrick. “The 10-year Treasury yield has dipped below 1%, and today’s declines are likely to make the recent run lower the largest decline of the cycle.”

As shown in LPL Research’s chart of the day, the current decline in the 10-year Treasury yield without a m

The hits keep coming, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) did an intra-meeting cut yesterday, causing stocks to sell off hard on concerns the economy is on more fragile footing than most think. Read First Emergency Rate Cut By the Fed Since 2008 for our immediate thoughts on the Fed and the rate cut.

The other big worry is the potential impacts of COVID-19 (aka, the coronavirus) on the global economy. We’ve discussed our views on this many times recently, so today we will take a look at another potential warning sign.

The S&P 500 Index fell in January and February. This rare combo isn’t something the bulls w