Frankfurt and Paris both fall more than 4% and London’s FTSE drops nearly 4%, wiping at least $400bn off the region’s market value in hoursLondon — European shares suffered their biggest slump since mid-2016 on Monday and oil plunged almost 5%, as a jump in coronavirus cases in Italy, South Korea, Japan and Iran sent investors scrambling to the security of gold and government bonds.Europe had seen Milan’s stock market plummet more than 5.
Wall Street’s initial fall swiped more than 800 points off the Dow, shoved the benchmark S&P 500 below its 50-day moving average — a key technical level for chart watchers — and took MSCI’s world index negative for the year.In Asia overnight, South Korea’s Kospi had slumped 3.9% after the government declared a high alert. The number of cases rose to 763 and deaths to seven.
The virus has now killed 2,592 people in China, which has reported 77,150 cases, and spread to about 28 other countries and territories, with a death toll outside China at nearly 24, according to a Reuters tally. US Fed fund futures signalled more rate cuts later in 2020 and a nearly 20% chance of a cut in March.
Korea’s won was down 1% at 1,219.06 after falling to its weakest since August 2019. Emerging-market currencies from Mexico’s peso and Turkey’s lira to Poland’s zloty and Russia’s rouble were all in the red. The rand, under pressure on concerns over SA’s stretched public finances, slipped 1%.