US open: Mixed start to trading following historic rout
US stocks were mixed at the bell on Tuesday following the Dow Jones and S&P 500's worst daily showings since the Global Financial Crisis in the previous session.
As of 1545 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.27% at 23,785.71, while the S&P 500 was 0.12% weaker at 2,743.39 and the Nasdaq Composite started out the session 0.15% firmer at 7,962.80.
The Dow opened 65.31 weaker on Tuesday after seeing out the previous session a whopping 2,013.76 points lower as coronavirus fears continued to roil shares, which combined with an unexpected record cut in prices from oil producer Saudi Arabia to make for a particularly dark day on Wall Street.
Donald Trump suggested on Monday that some sort of "payroll tax cut or relief" was being considered to offset the negative impact of the outbreak.
However, sentiment took a turn after White House officials told CNBC that the President wasn't even close to rolling out any specific proposals aimed at dealing with a coronavirus-fuelled economic slowdown.
CMC Markets' David Madden said: "The mood on Wall Street was bullish as traders were buying into stocks on the back of the comments from Mr Trump about a payrolls tax cut, but traders became impatient, and the bullish move ran out of steam."
Oil prices suffered in the previous session, with West Texas Intermediate prices diving more than 24% in their worst day since 1991 after Saudi Arabia cut crude prices for April following a collapse in OPEC+ talks.
Prices rallied somewhat at the opening bell, with West Texas Intermediate crude up 6.4% at $33.11 per barrel and Brent crude ahead 5.9% at $36.40 a barrel.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which dropped below 0.5% for the first time ever on Monday, also slightly recovered and was just above 0.6% in the early hours.
In corporate news, American Airlines said it would be drastically slashing both domestic and international flights in the wake of the outbreak.
No major earnings or data points were scheduled for release on Tuesday.