A pileup of bad news apparently convinced investors that they could no longer go on behaving as if the American economy had already recovered from the pandemic. And the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, warned that the depth of the downturn and pace of the recovery remained “extraordinarily uncertain.”The fall shook markets in Australia and Asia, and the trouble could spill into European markets as they head into the weekend. Details: Stocks in South Korea dropped 2.5 percent, and markets in Australia and Japan were down as well, after the S&P 500 stock index fell 5.9 percent. Just days earlier it had recouped its losses for the year. Related: To try to cut national spending during the pandemic, some countries are removing restraints on electricity and petroleum prices by lowering fuel subsidies or raising fuel taxes.

Source: New York Times June 12, 2020 04:05 UTC