Capital Is Part of the Coronavirus Cure

U.S. stocks capped their worst week since 2008 Friday amid fears that the coronavirus will become a pandemic. Though markets rallied Monday on expectations that central banks will slash interest rates, the Nasdaq was still down nearly 9% from its record close of 9817.18 on Feb. 19.

Nasdaq Inc. saw record messages and volumes last week. Nasdaq options markets registered an all-time peak of 62 billion messages on Friday, far above its daily average of about 18 billion over the past year. Similarly, Nasdaq U.S. equities volumes this week reached 2.74 billion shares traded, compared with an average of 1.39 billion over the last year. Wall Street’s fear gauge, the VIX, more than tripled last week, reaching the highest level of volatility since the 2008-09 financial crisis.