Steven Mnuchin, Treasury secretary, arrives at a hotel in Beijing, China, on Thursday, March 28, 2019.
Gilles Sabrie | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that the current market sell-off will be short-lived and, as such, looks like a compelling investment opportunity for investors looking to buy equities at a discount.
“This is a short-term issue. It may be a couple of months but we’re going to get through this and the economy will be stronger than ever,” the secretary said from the White House.
“I look back at people who bought stocks after the crash in 1987, people who bought stocks after the financial crisis. For long-term investors, this will be a great investment opportunity,” he said.
“This is not like the financial crisis, where people don’t know when this will end: We will get through this,” Mnuchin added. “By the end of the year, I thin you can expect we’re going to have a big rebound in economic activity.”
The Treasury Secretary’s comments came just ahead of the market’s open on Friday and on the heels of the worst day on Wall Street since 1987. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 suffered their worst one-day hits in more than 30 years on Thursday as investor sentiment over the spread of the coronavirus deteriorated from uncertain to panicked.
Both major U.S. stock indexes ended their historic, 11-year bull market runs this week and are more than 20% below their respective record highs in bear markets.
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