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KATIE MARTIN: The financial markets are sick. The coronavirus that originated in China is now dominating every asset class in the world. So how bad is it? Well, I can't sugarcoat this one for you. It's serious. This has been the worst week for global stocks since the financial crisis of 2008. The S&P 500, the main US benchmark of stocks, has fallen by 10% in just a few days to market's fastest correction since the Great Depression.
In Europe and the UK, if anything, it's even worse. This was definitely not on investors radars at the start of this year. Broadly speaking, investors figured that 2020 was going to be, well, meh. Nothing spectacular, but nothing awful either. Trade tensions between the US and China had simmered down. Global growth looked OK, all pretty humdrum.
In early January, the virus started getting more coverage and attention, but again, the thinking was that it would be contained within China. And looking back at previous epidemics like SARS, any damage to markets would likely prove fleeting. Factory shutdowns were expected to be brief. Investors were talking about how to profit from a speedy bounceback.
The turning point came when the virus hit Italy. 10 towns were quarantined. Big events were cancelled. Manufacturing was disrupted. The illness started hitting ski resorts. And suddenly, for money managers in London and New York, this all felt closer to home. The market started tumbling in earnest. The White House was clear. Buy the dip, officials said. Investors are not listening.
Money managers are not reacting to the human cost of this outbreak, dreadful though it is. Instead, this is about companies' supply chains, about factories being unable to operate, about bankruptcies, about planes not flying. Maybe this is no more serious an illness than the seasonal flu. Maybe. But seasonal flu does not ground aircraft. This is a big risk to growth.
Europe's leisure and travel stocks are putting in their worst performance since 9/11. The fear is evident not just in the stock markets. The bond markets are on fire. Government bonds are always in high demand when the going gets tough. And right now, US bonds are at a record high with 10-year yields well under 1.2%. It's hard to overstate how extreme that is.
The really scary bit for investors-- how do we fix this? The usual medicine to market wobbles, interest rate cuts from central banks, is unlikely to do the trick, although investors are anticipating them. It all goes to show how brutal a shakeout can be when it pierces through the anaesthetic of a decade of central bank support. Fear is the new greed.
