Wednesday's early afternoon trade: Dow heads for worst day since 1987 as record bull run ends

The Dow Jones index was on course on Thursday for its worst performance since Wall Street's "Black Monday" crash of 1987, as President Donald Trump's move to curb travel from Europe added to growing corporate distress over the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump announced several steps to help small businesses, but failed to convince traders he would be able to blunt the outbreak's impact on the domestic economy, ending the longest bull run in Wall Street history and driving the Dow into a bear market.

With all three main indexes down more than 3%, and record numbers of stocks hitting 52-week lows, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq looked set to follow at the close.

Airline stocks tanked 11%, while cruise liner Carnival Corp plummeted after its Princess Cruises said it would suspend global operations for two months.

Boeing Co fell another 13% as J.P. Morgan abandoned its long-term backing for the planemaker's shares, a day after the company signaled major cutbacks and drew on a large chunk of additional reserve cash.

The company, one of Wall Street's most influential, has lost nearly 40% of its value this week and its recent actions now look representative of the fear infecting corporate America over the outbreak's financial impact.

United Airlines tumbled 12.4% after saying it had borrowed $2 billion to cope with the unprecedented disruption to the industry from sweeping business travel and holiday cancellations.

At 1:05 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 814.74 points, or 3.46%, at 22,738.48, while the S&P 500 was down 90.55 points, or 3.30%, at 2,650.83.

The Nasdaq Composite was down 267.42 points, or 3.36%, at 7,684.63.

In a month of chaos on markets, the Dow Jones has now handed back all of the past two years' gains, but remains around 14% above levels from Nov 8, 2016, a day before Donald Trump was elected as the 46th President of the United States.