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US stocks tumbled on Wednesday, ending sharply in the red. Investors worried about rising Covid-19 infection in parts of the country, quarantine requirements for intra-US travel and newly proposed tariffs on EU imports.
The three major stock indexes recorded their worst performance in nearly two weeks.
"Due to current Covid-19 conditions in some of the communities we serve, we are temporarily closing stores in these areas," the company said in a statement on Wednesday. "We take this step with an abundance of caution as we closely monitor the situation and we look forward to having our teams and customers back as soon as possible."
The locations to close will be Highland Village, First Colony Mall, Houston Galleria, Memorial City, Willowbrook Mall, Baybrook and The Woodlands, Apple said.
Apple has 510 stores worldwide, 271 of which are in the United States.
The results of the Fed's bank stress test, which assesses their capital buffers during crises, are due tomorrow.
The Covid-19 recession has made many businesses reliant on credit lines after the economy shut down in the spring to stop the spread of the virus.
But the cruise companies had their own company-specific reasons to explain the drops.
In its report, S&P said that it expects "Carnival's credit measures to remain very weak through 2021 because of its plans for a gradual reintroduction of capacity and our forecast for continued weak demand."
The future for cruise companies remains highly uncertain. It's not clear when they will resume voyages -- or even whether consumers will feel comfortable booking any trips. As a result, shares of Carnival and Royal Caribbean have each plummeted more than 60% this year while Norwegian has lost nearly three quarters of its market value in the same period.
Four items of bad news are weighing on the market today, says Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz: The IMF's lower growth forecast, rising Covid-19 infections, proposed tariffs on $3.1 billion worth of EU imports, and a mandatory quarantine for anyone coming from high-infection rate states to New York, New Jersey or Connecticut.
That said, stocks are unlikely to retest the lows they hit in March, he said. With monetary and fiscal stimulus in high gear already, there is a backstop to the economy.
The Federal Reserve has moved to buy non-traditional assets including high yield bonds. Some are wondering whether the central bank will go as far as buying stocks to stabilize the market, but El-Erian believes this is unlikely.
Even the step to buy high yield bonds was still a bit of a head-scratcher because the long-term effects of such unprecedented steps are uncertain, he said.
Millions of Americans have been working from home for months as the coronavirus pandemic has shut down work life as we knew it.
That said, companies are struggling with an unprecedented economic environment.
"We don’t want global pandemics but it is accelerating a shift to digital transformation," said Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield on the CNN Business' digital live show Markets Now.
"It's really a time of turbulence, he added. There is a "strong tail wind on one side, strong head wind on the other."
The company is now launching "Slack Connect", which allows different companies to communicate with each other using its channel-based platform, which is traditionally used for internal communications only.
"I think it will be a big step forward for how corporations communicate but also for security," Butterfield said.
Investors are clearly downcast today.
As Covid-19 infections rise across some states, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced people coming from areas with high infection rates have to quarantine for 14 days.