U.S. stocks indexes on Tuesday opened modestly lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at risk of the worst quarterly performance on record, as investors have dealt with the impacts of a global pandemic.
The Dow was down 118 points, or 0.5%, at 22,242, the S&P 500 index shed 0.4% at 2,616, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was 0.5% lower to start Tuesday action.
For the Dow, it is on pace for a 12.7% decline in the last session in March, and a 22.3% decline for the first quarter, which would rank as the worst first quarter for the 124-year-old index in its history.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 was set for a more than 11% decline for the month and a quarterly skid of 19%. The Nasdaq was on pace for a loss of 9,6% for the month and 13.7% for the quarter end.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday it will launch a temporary lending facility that will allow foreign central banks with accounts at the Fed to convert their holdings of Treasuries into dollars, its latest in a series of efforts to fix liquidity issues in the global market. In economic reports, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 3.9% in the year that ended in January, up from a 3.7% annual rate the prior month.
Source : Market Watch