Coronavirus: global stock markets plunge for a second day
Markets in London and New York added to huge losses seen the day before as they reacted to latest updates on the outbreak.
Tuesday 25 February 2020 21:32, UK
Global stock markets have endured a second day of carnage as concerns mount over the speed of the coronavirus outbreak's spread.
The FTSE 100 slumped by more than 100 points to hit its lowest level in four and a half months, meaning nearly £100bn has been wiped off the value of its constituent companies in the past 48 hours.
New York's Dow Jones, which dropped 1,000 points during a global rout on Monday, lost another 879 points, or 3.15% on Tuesday.
It came after cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, were identified across Italy and was now also found to be in Spain, Austria and Croatia.
Meanwhile, US public health officials alerted Americans to begin preparing for the spread of the coronavirus - a change in tone after efforts previously largely focused on preventing it from entering the country.
On Monday, the FTSE 100 had suffered its deepest one-day losses since 2016 - with £62bn erased from its firms' total value - led by airlines and miners.
It was a similar story in Europe and on Wall Street, which saw its worst day's performance for two years.
After that huge sell-off, markets had started Tuesday in a positive mood.
However, sentiment soon turned sour with the FTSE 100 closing 139 points, or 1.9%, down - wiping a further £35bn of the combined value of its constituent companies.
There were similar falls across Europe.
In London, easyJet - which had been the biggest faller on Monday with a 17% decline - lost a further 3.5%.
Travel operator TUI was nearly 5% lower.
The biggest loser on Tuesday was cruise ship operator Carnival - off by nearly 6% - followed by engineering firm Meggitt, which fell 5% after it said the coronavirus crisis would hit sales this year.
Experts put the latest declines down to the new reported cases on the continent - key markets for airlines and holiday firms - reinforcing expectations that the global economy is on course for damage in the short term.
The Italian MIB, which lost 5.4% of its value on Monday, saw early gains on Tuesday as investors continued to digest the implications of the country's efforts to limit the COVID-19 spread through restrictions of movement.
But it later turned negative, off by 1.4% by the close, while Spain's IBEX was more than 2% lower.
The latest Wall Street slump saw the Dow Jones hit its lowest levels since October.
Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab stockbrokers, said: "For the first time in a while we're finally waking up to the fact that this issue could go on for a while and have a significant impact on Chinese and global economic growth and potentially the United States.
"When people react to it because they don't travel or go to restaurants or go shopping, that'll have an immediate impact on the economy."