American equities closed down today, with the major domestic indices all losing ground after a wild trading cycle.

After starting the day up sharply higher after strong Monday gains, those gains were erased as the day closed.

It was a day of confusing movement; the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, to pick an example, had a range on the day of more than 3%, despite closing off just a tenth of that figure. Divining the correct reason for movement in the stock market is a fool errand most days.

Today, however, it isn&t hard to point to at least part of the reason for the reversed gains: a possibly record-setting one-day domestic death toll from COVID-19.

Per collected data, deaths for the day as of the time of writing came to 1,690, with several high-infection states yet to report. Here are the day results: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA): -26.13, -0.12% S-P 500: -4.27, -0.116% Nasdaq Composite: -25.98, -0.33% Shares of SaaS and cloud companies dropped more sharply, with the Bessemer cloud index falling 1.88% on the day.

Oil also fell, with WTI crude dropping more than 7% as of the time of writing. Are you a bit sandblasted by all the volatility? Let update you on how the major indices have performed since their recent highs: DJIA change from 52 week highs: -23.4% S-P 500 change from 52 week highs: -21.63% Nasdaq Composite change from 52 week highs: -19.83% And for good measure, the Bessemer cloud index is off 24.09% from recent highs.

So everything is in bear market territory at the moment — even after Monday huge gains — except for the Nasdaq Composite, which remains merely in deep correction.

Not great news for anyone with a 401k balance, but the numberswere worse on Friday. How SaaS startups should plan for a turbulent Q2 Today the market tried to go up again and failed.

Let see what tomorrow COVID-19 data shows us.

It just may drive the markets yet again.