new york global stocks plunged into a bear market and oil slumped further on thursday after stimulus efforts from the european central bank ecb failed to calm investors alarmed by us moves overnight to restrict travel from europe over the spread of the coronavirustrading was halted for 15 minutes after the open in new york after the sp 500 index fell more than 7 it was last trading down nearly 8 us president donald trump restricted certain travel from europe to the us in a televised address about the health crisis on wednesday shocking investors and travellers and disappointing traders hoping to see broader measures to fight the viruslater the us markets cut some losses after the federal reserve bank of new york said on thursday it will introduce 15 trillion in new repo operations this week and start purchasing a range of maturities as part of its monthly treasury purchasesin the uk the bluechip ftse 100 closed down 109 while the midcap index fell 94 both indices logged their worst day since october 1987its not just the fear of the economy going weak but basically being on the brink of shutting down said dennis dick trader at bright trading in las vegas its mass selling across the board and we are pricing in a potential to go into another financial crisisworry spread far beyond stocks with concern building over companies lines of credit and their ability to finance activity in the short term the ecb approved fresh stimulus measures and temporarily dropped banks capital requirements to help the euro zone cope with the shock of the pandemic but kept interest rates on hold disappointing marketsthe dow jones industrial average fell over 1900 points or over 8 the sp 500 lost over 200 points or 76 and the nasdaq composite dropped nearly 600 points or 7emerging market stocks lost 66 mscis broadest index of asiapacific shares outside japan closed 58 lower while japans nikkei lost 44 mscis gauge of stocks across the globe shed 74 down more than 20 from its 52week peakinvestors also rushed into safehaven assets from bonds to the yen bitcoin plunged 25 the vix volatility index wall streets fear gauge and an equivalent measure of volatility for the euro stoxx 50 hit their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis fed fund rate futures are now pricing in a 1percentagepoint cut rather than 075