The rapidly deteriorating health of the financial markets is being driven by a contagion of fear and uncertainty about a global pandemic that's infecting the economy in ways that seemed unfathomable just a month ago.

It almost seems like a distant memory now, but shortly after the President Day's holiday weekend the benchmark S&P 500 index closed at a record high, buoyed by another round of impressive quarterly corporate profits that had convinced investors the damage caused by a fast-spreading coronavirus in China would cause relatively little damage. Anyone who glanced at their 401(k) statem...