ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This latest surge in new coronavirus cases, especially in Europe and the U.S., is having a big impact on financial markets. Stock prices were down sharply for the third day in a row, both in the U.S. and Europe. We're joined by NPR's Jim Zarroli.
Hi, Jim.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: So the Dow was down more than 900 points today. That is 3.4%. Is this all about the pandemic, or is something else going on here?
ZARROLI: No. As President Trump says, it's COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. We're seeing COVID cases in the U.S. surpass the high levels they were at last summer. There's talk of more lockdowns, for instance, in Illinois - same thing in Europe. Germany just today said it was closing down all restaurants and bars for all of November. You're seeing a night curfew in Paris.
And this is - all this just hurts spending. I mean, people don't go out as much. They don't go to gyms. They don't go to retail stores and hotels. And that kind of thing makes investors nervous about where the economy is going. So United Airlines today was down - or I guess since Friday has been down 15%. Also, oil companies - they always do badly when the economy slows 'cause gas consumption goes down. So today we saw Exxon and Valero Energy and Chevron - all of them down.
SHAPIRO: You know, earlier this summer, there were a lot of coronaviruses cases, but the stock market still did pretty well. Why have things changed so much?
ZARROLI: Well, yeah, there was more optimism for a while. I think that the economy was going to weather the storm. You had some - you know, these big tech companies that actually benefited from the pandemic. I mean, people watch a lot of Netflix when they're staying home. And these stocks were pushing the market higher for a while. But I think now that that optimism is waning, I think many people are just coming to grips with the fact that the economy is really not going to recover completely as long as COVID's around. Unless there's a vaccine or some kind of big improvement in treatment, the pandemic is going to be this big weight on the economy's shoulders.
SHAPIRO: Maybe a stimulus bill would help, but Congress and the White House have not been able to negotiate one. What impact is that having?
ZARROLI: Definitely a factor. I mean, let's not forget, you know, of the 22 million jobs that have been lost in the U.S. since March, only about half of them have come back. It looked for a while like there could be an agreement of some kind. White House and Congress were working on an agreement, but they haven't made much progress. So there's a lot of bad blood now. And nobody really thinks there's going to be any kind of agreement before next week's election and maybe even not after that. So the stock market's pretty worried about what effect that's going to have.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. So there are two elephants in the room, the pandemic and the election. What impact does the uncertainty of the election having on stocks?
ZARROLI: Yeah. I mean, President Trump has warned that electing former Vice President Biden is going to cause a depression, is going to send everybody's 401K crashing through the floor. It doesn't seem like the markets agree. I mean, the odds have favored a Biden win for a while, and the market seems to have just shrugged it off. On the other hand, if the election is contested and we go through this long period of uncertainty and turmoil, you know, that's something investors don't like. And that definitely has a potential to throw a scare into the markets.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Jim Zarroli, thank you.
ZARROLI: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
