HONG KONG: Asian equities sank again on Thursday while the dollar surged as a European Central Bank plan to spend more than US$800 billion to buy bonds failed to instil optimism in traders who fear that the world is heading for a virus-fuelled economic catastrophe.
Those comments echoed the words of her predecessor Mario Draghi, whose pledge to do"whatever it takes" to preserve the eurozone was seen as a turning point in the region's sovereign debt crisis. Manila plunged almost 25 per cent after reopening following a two-day suspension prompted by the outbreak but it later bounced back to sit more than 13 per cent down.
The pound is now wallowing around its lowest levels since the mid-1980s, while the greenback was up more than six percent against the Australian dollar and more than three percent on the South Korean won. The ECB's bazooka was the latest in a string of measures by central banks and governments aimed at supporting the global economy, which have amounted to almost US$2 trillion.
But Ryuta Otsuka, chief strategist at Toyo Securities, told AFP:"Offering of liquidity by the authorities supported morning trade, but that was short-lived as people don't know where the exit is from fears over the coronavirus, even though it seems like it is simply something like a bad kind of cold."
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