SYDNEY- Global shares and oil slid while safe-haven gold surged as the spread of the coronavirus outside China darkened the outlook for world growth with infections and deaths rising in South Korea, Italy and the Middle East.
South Korea put the country on high alert while the number of infections jumped to over 700 and deaths rose to seven. In Italy, officials said a third person infected with the flu-like virus had died, while the number of cases jumped to above 150 from just three before Friday.
Iran, which announced its first infections last week, said it had confirmed 43 cases and eight deaths, with most of the infections in the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan imposed travel and immigration restrictions on the Islamic Republic.
In a sign of panic, US stock futures were sold with E-minis for the S&P500 ESc1 falling 1.2 percent in early Asian trade while Nikkei futures NKc1 slipped over 2 percent. EuroStoxx 50 futures declined 1.5 percent while futures for London’s FTSE skidded 1 percent.
Asian share indexes were also a sea of red.
Australia’s benchmark index slid 2.2 percent while New Zealand was about 1.3 percent lower.
South Korea’s KOSPI index fell about 3 percent. Chinese shares opened down with the blue-chip CSI300 index easing 0.6 percent.
That left MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan off 1.6 percent at its lowest since early February. Japanese markets were closed for a public holiday.
“There is lots of bad news on the coronavirus front with the total number of new cases still rising,” AMP chief economist Shane Oliver wrote in a note.
“Of course, there is much uncertainty about the case data, new cases outside China still looks to be trending up and the economic flow on has further to go with the Chinese economy likely to have contracted in the March quarter.” – Reuters
