US STOCKS-Historic Fed boost fails to stop Wall Street's coronavirus-driven sell-off

(Updates index moves, adds detail on stock and sector moves)
* Fed to lend against student loans, repurchase Treasuries
* More states under lockdown
* Goldman Sachs sees 24% plunge in 2nd-qtr U.S. real GDP
* Indexes end: Dow -3.04%, S&P 500 -2.93%, Nasdaq -0.27%

By Noel Randewich
March 23 (Reuters) - Wall Street's slide deepened on Monday
as an unprecedented moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve to shore
up credit across the economy proved insufficient to sooth
investors' fears about the swiftly-spreading coronavirus.
After recently cutting interest rates to near zero, the Fed
will now lend against student loans and credit card loans, as
well as back the purchase of corporate bonds and make direct
loans to companies. With the addition of Maryland, Indiana, Michigan and
Massachusetts, 13 out of 50 U.S. states have imposed
restrictions on people's movements to curtail the virus, putting
the country on a track similar to those of the most devastated
European countries, such as Italy and Spain.
The threat posed by those actions foreshadowed a near-halt
in economic activity and more pain for U.S. equities, and
prompted several analysts to slash their growth forecasts.
"What the Fed did is important because it does help in the
credit markets. But it's not enough from an equity market
perspective," said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at
Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. "What we now need is leadership
out of Congress to pass some sort of stimulus bill, because what
the Fed's doing is relieving some problems, but it doesn't do
enough to solve to solve what's out there."
Investors had hoped the U.S. Senate would clear a
far-reaching coronavirus economic stimulus package over the
weekend.
But Democrats and Republicans failed to reach agreement and
on Monday the $2 trillion package failed to advance in the
Senate as Democrats said it contained too little money for
states and hospitals and not enough restrictions on a fund to
help big businesses. Goldman Sachs expects an outright contraction in global real
gross domestic product in 2020 on the back of a 24% plunge in
U.S. real GDP in the second quarter: 2-1/2 times as large as the
previous postwar record. The S&P 500 has experienced a $9 trillion wipeout to its
value since the benchmark index hit a record high last month. A
rush for safe-haven assets like government bonds caused U.S.
Treasury yields to fall on Monday. The S&P 500 is down about 34% from its February record high,
its lowest level since fears of the coronavirus swept across
Wall Street.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI tumbled 3.04% to end
at 18,591.93 points, while the S&P 500 .SPX lost 2.93% to
2,237.4. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 0.27% to 6,860.67,
its overall decline cushioned by a 3.07% rise in Amazon.com
AMZN.O .
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 15.7 billion shares, just shy
of the 15.8 billion-share average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.
"What we really need to turn things around is a sense of
closure - not on the virus, but on the response to the virus,"
said Stephen Massocca, senior vice president at Wedbush
Securities in San Francisco. "Once the market sees that, I think
the market will rebound considerably."
The S&P energy index .SPNY slumped 6.65%, the most among
the 11 major sectors, tracking a plunge in oil prices. O/R
The S&P consumer discretionary index .SPLRCD rose 0.35%,
the only sector index in positive territory.
Leading the Dow, Boeing BA.N surged 11.17% after Goldman
Sachs upgraded its rating on the planemaker to "buy."
Apple AAPL.O dropped 2.12%, leaving its stock market value
at $982 billion, second on Wall Street only to Microsoft's $1.03
trillion value. Microsoft MSFT.O fell 1%.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
3.18-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.62-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted no new 52-week highs and 224 new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded two new highs and 525 new lows.