The stock market in the age of coronavirus

How to understand the wild swings of the past two weeks

Coronavirus testing.
(Image credit: Illustrated | JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images, Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

The stock market is in the midst of one of its most volatile periods ever.

On Thursday, February 27, 2020 the Dow dropped 1,190 points — the largest drop in the market's history. And the sudden fall was hardly a one-off. After peaking in early February at 29,551 points, by the end of month the Dow Jones had lost roughly 20 percent of its value. Then, on Tuesday March 3, the Federal Reserve Board announced they were cutting the benchmark interest rate by half a point and Joe Biden had a strong showing in the Democratic primaries, and just like that, the market came roaring back to life with a 1,173-point gain on Wednesday, March 4. But this was followed by another 1,000 loss on Thursday.

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Benjamin Waddell is an associate professor of sociology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. He is a father, husband, writer, professor, and advocate for social justice. He is a contributing writer for HuffPost, The Conversation, and Global Americans. He also has recent publications in Sociology of Development, Latin American Research Review, The Social Science Journal, and Rural Sociology.