Markets fall amid coronavirus fears

A SI A N stoc k ma rkets plunged further on Friday owing to coronavirus fears, deepen ing a global rout after Wall Street endured its biggest one-day drop in nine years.

Tokyo’s benchmark plummeted by an unusually wide margin of 3.7%, and Seoul and Sydney dropped by more than 3%. Hong Kong and Shanghai fell over 2.5%.

Oil prices also slumped on expectations that industrial activity and demand might contract.

Investors had been confident that the disease which emerged in China in December might be under control. But outbreaks in Italy, South Korea and Iran have fuelled fears that the Covid-19 virus is turning into a global threat which might derail trade and industry.

Anxiety intensified yesterday when the United States reported its first virus case in someone who had not travelled abroad or been in contact with anyone who had.

On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 i ndex ended down 12% from its all-time high a week ago.

A growing list of major companies are issuing profit warnings and say factory shutdowns in China are disrupting supply chains. They say travel bans and other anti-disease measures also are hurting sales in China, a major consumer market.

Virus fears “have become fullblown across the globe as cases outside China climb,” Chang Wei Liang and Eugene Leow, of Singapore bank DBS, said in a report.

The New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets also retreated.

China has shut down much of its economy to stem the spread of the infection.

Authorities are shifting to trying to reopen factories and other businesses in areas with low disease risk but travel controls still are in effect in many areas.

Japan market