Stock market live updates: Stocks drop more than 1.5%, oil turns negative, stay-at-home stocks rise

U.S. equities started the week off with declines on Monday amid falling oil prices and abounding uncertainty about the depth or duration of the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. oil prices for the May contract set to expire on Tuesday went negative for the first time ever. Earnings season was set to continue as investors braced for more bad data about the virus’s impact on corporate profits. Here’s what’s happening. 

This is a live blog. Please check back for updates. 

U.S. equities closed deep in negative territory on Monday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping about 595 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.8% and 1% to start the week. Markets were weighed on by a downward spiral in oil prices, specifically a contract set to expire on Tuesday which closed in negative territory for the first time ever. Still, stocks that are benefiting from the coronavirus shutdown bucked the broader market’s rout. Amazon and Netflix rose 0.8% and 3.4%, respectively. —Fitzgerald 

Retail investors should stay away from oil funds even after the May futures contract for West Texas International fell below $0 on its final day of trading, Hayman Capital Management’s Kyle Bass said. “Retail has been plowing into these oil contracts thinking they’re buying spot crude oil when they’re buying the next front month. So they’re paying $22 a barrel when the spot market’s negative $38. Retail investors are going to get fleeced if they continue to fly into these oil ETFs,” Bass said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” Bass pointed to the U.S. Oil Fund (USO) as a fund that retail investors were at risk buying into. He said he had short positions against some of the ETFs and some of the energy ETFs. — Pound

West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery fell more than 100% to settle at negative $37.63 per barrel, meaning producers would pay traders to take the oil off their hands. —Stevens

With roughly one hour left in the trading session, the major averages fell on the back of a historic decline. The Dow traded down more than 500 points, or 2.2%, while the S&P 500 slid 1.6%. The Nasdaq Composite traded more than 0.5% lower. West Texas Intermediate futures for May, which expire Tuesday, traded below zero for the first time ever as the deterioration demand outlook pressured prices across the futures curve. —Imbert

As companies look for ways to screen employees for the coronavirus, FLIR Systems may be poised to take advantage, according to analysts. The company designs and manufacturers thermal imaging cameras, components and imaging sensors. “In recent weeks, there has been a pickup in interest in FLIR given its potential to benefit from higher sales of thermal imaging cameras for detecting elevated skin temperatures. Since the early 2000s, FLIR has sold these type of cameras and has seen increased sales during several outbreaks, including SARS, Avian Bird Flu, and MERS,” Raymond James said in a note to clients. Reuters reported on Saturday that Amazon had deployed thermal imaging cameras to screen employees temperatures in its warehouse though it didn’t specify what company’s cameras were being used. – Bloom

The stock market had its worst first quarter ever to start 2020, but it was a better one for stock pickers, at least relatively speaking. While the S&P 500 lost 20%, some 59% of managers who ran actively managed funds beat the large-cap index, according to Bank of America Global Research. The performance wasn’t much to brag about – the average fund return was 59.5% – but the trend showed that picking stocks worked better than merely following the index. That was particularly true with growth funds, which collectively lost 13.8%, as opposed to value, which declined 27%. Investors, though, continue to pour more money in passively focused ETFs than more actively focused mutual funds. ETFs have seen $93.3 billion in inflows, or 2.2% of total assets, while equity-focused mutual funds have seen $96.7 billion in outflows, or 1.4% of assets, according to BofA. – Cox

The oil futures contract that fell more than 100% on Monday is for May delivery, and it expires on Tuesday. With the coronavirus pandemic leading to unprecedented demand loss, and with storage tanks quickly filling up, there is no demand for this oil contract expiring Tuesday. That’s why it turned negative, meaning producers would pay to get this oil off their hands because there is no one that needs that oil this week with the country shutdown. Futures contracts trade by the month. The contract for June delivery traded 16% lower at $21.04 per barrel. So after that contract expires on Tuesday, oil will be back above $20. – Stevens 

The Senate failed to reach a deal on the next coronavirus relief bill in time for a brief Monday session. Congressional Democrats have held discussions with the Treasury Department on the next package to rescue an economy and health care system ravaged by the global pandemic. “At this hour, our Democratic colleagues are still prolonging their discussions with the administration, so the Senate regretfully will not be able to pass more funding for Americans’ paychecks today,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during the pro forma session Monday. He said the Senate would meet again at 4 p.m. Tuesday to try to pass legislation to replenish a key small business aid program.  – Pramuk

West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery tanked 107%, or $19.70, to trade at -1.78 cents per barrel, its lowest level on record. —Li

About three stocks traded lower at the New York Stock Exchange for every advancer as the market weighed the latest coronavirus news and a decline in oil prices. Overall, 2,000 NYSE-listed stocks traded lower while 869 climbed, FactSet data shows. —Imbert

Billionaire investors Howard Marks said there is a sharp disconnect between the stock market and the reality the world is facing amid the coronavirus outbreak. “We’re only down 15% from the all-time high of Feb. 19,” Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, said on CNBC’s “Halftime Report” on Monday.  But “it seems to me the world is more than 15% screwed up.” —Imbert 

When oil’s greatest historian says this never happened before, you have to take notice.Dan Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit, said there were two other times that WTI oil futures collapsed to single digits amid storage shortages, but it was different then.”You ran out of storage and prices fell. The difference was in 1986 and 1998, demand was going up. This is with this demand collapse. We’re on a planet we’ve never been on before.. This will end and demand will come back. A lot of it is up to public policy and a lot of it is up to the virus itself,” says Yergin. Yergin is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and has written three significant books on oil.

West Texas Intermediate futures for May plunged 76% to as low as $4.31 per barrel, about half of what it fell to during those other periods when oversupply resulted in a shortage of storage. The May futures are going lower and lower because investors do not want to take physical storage of the commodity, since there are few places left to keep it.
Yergin thinks the U.S. will see production decline 2.9 million barrels a day this year from its first quarter level of 13 million barrels a day. “Now oil production is on a downward slope, and there will be lot of injury and pain as the industry goes down this slope,” he said.The shutdown of the economy has resulted in a steep drop in demand for oil. There’s a glut of jet fuel, and gasoline demand has been nearly sliced in half and could drop even more before the economy reopens.– Domm

Rite Aid — Rite Aid shares jumped nearly 9% on Monday after the company announced that it was expanding its on-site testing locations for Covid-19.

Boeing — Boeing shares fell more than 3% after the China Development Bank Financial Leasing Co. canceled the purchase of 29 Boeing 737 Max jets.

United Airlines — Shares of United Airlines fell nearly 4% after reporting a $2.1 billion loss for first quarter as the coronavirus pandemic diminished travel demand. The preliminary results showed revenue fell 17% in the first quarter from a year ago to $8 billion.

Check out more companies making headlines midday Monday. — Imbert

West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery tanked 51%, or $9.41, to $8.86 per barrel, the lowest level since 1986. The price of the nearest oil futures contract, which expires Tuesday, was the hardest hit, detaching from later month futures contracts. This suggests that some believe there could be a recovery later in the year. Meanwhile international benchmark, Brent crude, which has already rolled to the June contract, traded 5.1% lower at $26.65 per barrel. The June WTI contract, which expires on May 19, fell 9% to $22.77 per barrel.— Stevens, Li

A dizzying 12-month period in the markets has seen threats from a trade war, a global economic slowdown or even a recession and, oh yeah, a global pandemic unmatched in a century, all of which have amounted to a whole lot of nothing, at least for the shares of big U.S. companies. During the period, the S&P 500 is little changed — down about 1% heading into Monday trading — despite a series of threats that also has included political upheaval and the end to the longest rally in U.S. history. The year’s sum has been the result of a gradual rise to a new record Feb. 19, followed by the quickest slide in market history, then by a 28% rebound.

Other markets measures haven’t been so lucky. The Russell 2000, which consists of smaller companies, is off about 22%. An exchange-traded fund that tracks markets in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil, is off 20%, while another ETF that follows international stocks outside the U.S. has fallen more than 16%. Even Main Street’s favorite market indicator, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is down more than 10% over the past year. —Cox

Stocks continued to trade well off their lows on Monday after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said coronavirus hospitalizations are continuing to decline. Cuomo said New York is coming off of the plateau and is now starting a descent in infections. New York showed a fall in cases from Saturday to Sunday. Shortly before noon the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about 160 points. — Fitzgerald 

Stocks benefiting from the stay-at-home trend gained on Monday, helping keep the major averages off their lows. Amazon’s stock rose more than 2% as the e-commerce giant continues to take advantage of Americans’ stocking up on food and household items. Streaming giant Netflix is a winner of the coronavirus shutdown with consumer increasing screen time. Netflix’s stock rose nearly 5%, making its year-to-date gain nearly 40%. Social media stock Facebook rose about 0.5% and AMD rose 3.5%. AMD, which makes chips for video games, is benefiting from the quarantine as more people spend time at home gaming. — Fitzgerald 

Stocks cut their losses around 11:00 am ET, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down about 200 points. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite was in the green. — Fitzgerald 

The S&P 500 has surged more than 25% since hitting a low on March 23. That bounce, according to The Earnings Scout CEO Nick Raich, feels like 2009. “How so? The worst of the S&P 500 downward EPS estimates, in terms of the magnitude of the cuts, occurred in early 2009. When the worst of the cuts were over, stock prices bottomed in March of 2009,” Raich said in a note to clients. To be sure, there is one key difference between then and now, Raich said: “Stock prices became extraordinarily cheap in 2009. They are not in 2020.” —Imbert

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street” that the final hour rally on Friday was “phony” and gave investors and analysts a chance to back away from stocks. “Friday’s market was a phony market, okay? There was 300 points added in the last few minutes,” Cramer said. The Dow rose 705 points, or 2.99%, on Friday, with much of that gain coming in a rally in the final hour of trading.— Pound

Walmart’s stock hit a 52-week high of $133.38 per share on Monday. Walmart’s stock is up 10% this year as the big box retailer benefits from the stay-at-home trend and an increase in online grocery orders. Walmart’s stock rose slighlly in morning trading on Monday. —Fitzgerald 

• BMO downgraded Peloton to underperform from market perform.
• Citi downgraded Boeing to neutral from buy.
• JPMorgan upgraded DuPont to overweight from equal weight.
• UBS downgraded Disney to neutral from buy.
• Wells Fargo downgraded Gilead to equal weight from overweight.
• Credit Suisse downgraded Disney to neutral from outperform.
• RBC upgraded AbbVie to outperform from sector perform.
• BMO upgraded Under Armour to market perform from underperform.
• Argus upgraded Citi to buy from hold.
• Stephens downgraded Redfin to equal weight from overweight.
• Oppenheimer initiated MSG Entertainment as outperform. —Bloom

The Energy Sector SPDR ETF dropped 4.5% in morning trading, on pace for its sixth negative day in seven. The ETF has fallen 46% this year with oil prices under pressure amid disappearing demand. Monday’s decline was led by Occidental Petroleum, which fell more than 9%. Helmerich & Payne, National Oilwell and Schlumberger all lost about 6%. The weakness in energy companies came as the price of West Texas oil cratered in part due to the May futures contract nearing expiration. – Li, Francolla

Shares of Amazon and Netflix climbed 2.1% and 3.4%, respectively, once again outperforming the broad market and pushing their 2020 gains to more than 30% each. The tech duo, which both hit record highs last week, are in a position to benefit from the stay-at-home trend amid the coronavirus outbreak. They are also among the firsts to fully make back the deep losses from the pandemic sell-off. — Li

Market technicians are watching the plummeting West Texas Intermediate May futures contract to see if it breaks $9.75 per barrel. That’s a low price it’s been at twice before – in 1998 and 1986. So if it skids below that level it would be a record low in the futures market. WTI was down more than 37% at about $11.50 per barrel in midmorning trading. The May contract expires Tuesday, and it is plunging because nobody wants to take delivery of the physical commodity in a market with no place to store it. The world wide oil glut has made storage scarce. Traders said in places like western Canada and Wyoming oil is selling for negative prices this morning. —Domm

U.S. equities opened deep in the red on Monday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 480 points. The S&P 500 fell 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1% as markets digested the economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis. Oil’s spiral continued to weigh on stocks. —Fitzgerald 

United Airlines on Monday reported a $2.1 billion loss for first quarter as the coronavirus pandemic drove travel demand down to the lowest level in decades. The Chicago-based airline said it has applied for up to $4.5 billion in government loans on top of about $5 billion federal payroll grants and loans it also expects to receive to weather the crisis.

United is the first major U.S. airline to detail the results — while they are preliminary — of the virus on its first quarter results. The disease and harsh measures to stop it from spreading such as stay-at-home orders has ravaged air travel demand and and prompted carriers to slash most of their flights. United said revenue fell 17% in the first quarter from a year ago to $8 billion. On an adjusted basis, United said it had a roughly $1 billion loss in the quarter. Shares of United Airlines fell more than 5% in premarket trading. — Josephs 

Credit Suisse and UBS both downgraded Disney to neutral as the company’s theme parks are remain closed due to the coronavirus crisis. UBS said the parks are unlikely to reopen this year and that business will be slower when they do. The entertainment stock fell about 3% in premarket trading and has underperformed the broader market so far this year. — Pound

Shares of oil producers and services companies are dropping in premarket trading on Monday after oil prices tumbled to their lowest level in more than 21 years. The May contract of U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures fell to $11.04 a barrel on Monday, down almost 40%, to register its lowest level since Dec. 22, 1998. Devon Energy and Noble Energy both fell more than 8%, while Occidental Petroleum tanked 10%. Halliburton dropped more than 7% after the oilfield services company warned of a big drop in activity due to oversupply and a massive drop in oil demand. – Li

Senate Democrats and Republicans are nearing a deal that could inject roughly $370 billion into loan programs for small businesses, a person familiar with the negotiations told CNBC. The talks come after the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which offers forgivable loans to small businesses, ran out of money on Thursday. Democrats rejected a proposal to refill the fund two weeks ago. They instead argued for changes, including adding more money to support federal testing, hospitals and local governments. They’ve also pushed to ensure groups without banking relationships get access to the program and SNAP benefits. — Hirsch

The burger chain’s CEO said Monday that Shack Shack is returning the $10 million small business loan it received from the government. The restaurant chain was able to raise about $150 million in an equity offering last week. The SBA loan program was a part of the federal government’s $2.2 trillion rescue package to help small and medium sized businesses and their employees during the coronavirus shutdown. Shares of Shake Shack ticked about 1.2% lower in premarket trading on Monday. — Fitzgerald 

Oil prices dropped to their lowest level in more than 20 years on Monday as the coronavirus continues to eat away at demand, and as traders fear that with tanks filling up rapidly, there will soon be nowhere to store crude. The price of the nearest futures contract for West Texas Intermediate, which expires Tuesday, plunged 26% to $13.39 per barrel. The contract for June delivery, which expires on May 19,  fell more than 8% to $22.91 per barrel, while the July contract was roughly 5% lower at $28. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded 3.38% lower at $27.12 per barrel.

The front part of the futures ‘curve,’ or the contract that expires tomorrow, was hit the hardest since it applies to fuel that’s set to be delivered while most of the country remains on lockdown due to the pandemic. There’s little demand for gasoline from refineries, and storage tanks in the U.S. are nearing their limits.

“A trading squeeze ahead of the futures contract expiry is exacerbated by the dislocation in the fundamentals this time around, contributing to these large price swings,” Rystad Energy’s head of oil markets Bjornar Tonhaugen said to CNBC in an email. – Stevens 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday the state is “past the high point” of new cases, noting the infection rate has fallen along with coronavirus-related hospitalizations. The governor said that 507 people died of the virus in New York on Sunday, down from 540 deaths reported on Saturday, which marks the state’s lowest daily death toll in over two weeks. Still, 1,300 people were hospitalized on Saturday Cuomo said. At least 13,869 people have died in New York from the virus. 

Despite optimistic news from the virus’s epicenter, deaths from the COVID-19 in the U.S. topped 40,000 on Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins. The deadly virus has infected more than 759,000 Americans. Globally, the coronavirus has infected 2.4 million people and killed more than 165,000 people. – Fitzgerald

Stock futures pointed to the declines at the open on Monday, with Dow futures falling more than 500 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were also set to drop at the opening bell. Markets are digesting the latest coronavirus news as well as a 20%  decline in U.S. oil prices. Earnings season continues on Monday as investors await data on how badly the COVID-19 outbreak has dented corporate profits. IBM reports after the bell. 

Stocks are coming off of their second week of gains in more than two months. U.S. equities got a boost last week when the White House discussed reopening the economy and Gilead Sciences appeared to have an effective coronavirus treatment. — Fitzgerald 

— with reporting from CNBC’s Lauren Hirsh, Pippa Stevens, Michael Bloom, Gina Francolla, Patti Domm and Leslie Josephs. 

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