Global share prices headed for the worst week since the darkest days of the world financial crisis in 2008 as investors braced for the coronavirus to become a pandemic and rapidly spread around the world.
Hopes that the epidemic that started in China would be over in a few months and economic activity would return to normal have been shattered, as new infections reported around the world now surpass those in China.
"The coronavirus now looks like a pandemic. Markets can cope even if there is big risk as long as we can see the end of the tunnel," said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. "But at the moment, no one can tell how long this will last and how severe it will get."
Hopes that the epidemic that started in China would be over in a few months and economic activity would return to normal have been shattered, as new infections reported around the world now surpass those in China.
"The coronavirus now looks like a pandemic. Markets can cope even if there is big risk as long as we can see the end of the tunnel," said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. "But at the moment, no one can tell how long this will last and how severe it will get."
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