Key U.S. stock indexes fell about 1% in midday trading Tuesday, while markets in Europe and Asia mostly finished higher. The top U.S. indexes in New York opened higher but slipped later in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 blue-chip stocks and the broader S&P 500 were both down about a percentage point, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq market was off a fraction of a point. On the last day of March, U.S. stocks were headed to their worst quarter since the 2008 recession, losses all recorded in March as the worldwide impact of the coronavirus pandemic severely impacted national economies and the death toll mounted daily. Asian markets closed mostly higher Tuesday as investors cheered good news about China’s factory output amid the pandemic. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 328 points, or nearly 1.50%, at the closing bell, while the index in Shanghai earned just over one-tenth of one percent. The gains were posted after Beijing announced earlier in the day that its official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) was 52.0 in March, rebounding from a record low of 35.7 in February.   Japan’s Nikkei and Australia’s S&P/ASX indexes both finished in negative territory, with the Nikkei losing just under 1% and the S&P/ASX dropping 2%. The Nikkei dropped a total of 10.5% during March, its biggest monthly decline since May 2010.  European indexes all closed higher, with London’s FTSE climbing about 2%, the DAX in Frankfurt up more than 1% and France’s CAC 40 edging up a fraction of a point.    Oil markets also enjoyed a welcomed surge in prices after sinking to their lowest levels since 2002. Prices have been plummeting due to fallen demand triggered by the pandemic combined with a glut of supply due to a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.  
 
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