UPDATE - US stock trading resumes after indices crater

ADDS DETAILS THROUGHOUT

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - All three major stock indices fell by about 7% Monday, prompting an exceedingly rare halt to trading as investors fretted over the economic effects of the new coronavirus and a sharp decline in the price of oil.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by over 1,700 points shortly after the opening bell, before recovering some losses after trading resumed.

The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down about 5% after pulling back from the sharp sell-off after trading resumed.

The latest whiplash day of trading comes amid an incredibly fraught environment on Wall Street over concerns that the new coronavirus will further stymy economic growth and create additional ripples in the global supply chain.

The global death toll from the virus is around 3,800, with more than 109,000 confirmed cases since COVID-19 emerged in China in December, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

After declaring the outbreak an international health emergency in January, the international health body last month updated the global risk level to “very high.”

As part of the global effort to contain the outbreak, some governments have closed their borders and suspended land and air travel with several countries including China, Iran, Italy, and South Korea. The

As Wall Street grappled with the latest developments the White House announced that U.S. President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force would brief the press Monday evening.

Beyond the global outbreak, a fight among major oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia over production has sent the benchmark U.S. crude oil price down about 20%.

Saudi Arabia-led OPEC and Russia-spearheaded non-OPEC could not agree on measures to further curb oil production on Friday after their seven-hour meeting ended in the Austrian capital Vienna.

This caused a slump in crude prices with international benchmark Brent sinking as low as $31.27 per barrel during early trading on Monday while American benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell to as much as to $27.34 a barrel.