Market update: It's really bad again / 2h ago 10:22

2h ago

10:22

Market update: It's really bad again

After over two hours of frenzied trading, European markets are still a mess - trading at their lowest levels since 2016.

 https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2020/mar/12/stock-markets-tumble-trump-europe-travel-ban-ecb-christine-lagarde-business-live?page=with:block-5e6a08538f08c2df6d2781f3#block-5e6a08538f08c2df6d2781f3

In London, the FTSE 100 is still down over 5%, having briefly hit its lowest level since 2012 this morning. That wipes another £80-odd billion off the index, pushing its coronavirus crisis losses over £450bn.

 Nouriel Roubini

✔

@Nouriel

The Coming Debt/Financial Crisis: in 2007-09 it was households/mortgages/levered banks in US. This time is corporate debt (CLOs, leveraged loans, 1 trillion of fallen angels in HG & HY, & commercial RE) & shadow banks. & even capitalized banks directly exposed to shadow banks!

The top faller on the Footsie is now betting firm Flutter, after rival Betway was hit with an £11.6m penalty for taking stolen money from its VIP customers.

But otherwise, the top fallers are companies particularly exposed to president Trump’s travel ban - or the prospect of tighter movement controls in the UK.

Rolls-Royce, which makes engines for the world’s aeroplane manufacturers, are down 12.5%. Holiday firm TUI are down 12%, with the summer booking season looking a complete washout. Cruise operator Carnival are down 9.9%. Whitbread, which runs the UK Premier Inn hotel chain, has lost 10.7% - as companies ban staff from attending conferences.

In Frankfurt, car maker Daimler, airline Lufthansa and Deutsche Bank have all lost 8% this morning.

On the Paris market, steelmaker ArcelorMittal are down 9%, with carmaker Renault and airline manufacturer Airbus losing 8%.

Stoxx 600: down 18 points or 5.5% at 315

FTSE 100: down 320 points or 5.4% at 5558.

German DAX: down 553 points or 5.3% at 9,885

French CAC: down 251 points or 5.5% at 4,358

Italy’s FTSE MIB: down 983 points or 5.5% at 16,943

Spanish IBEX: down 440 points or 5.9% at 6,995

The US travel ban, and Italy’s increasingly severe lockdown, are triggering the rout, as analyst Marios Hadjikyriacos of City trading firm XM explains:

Financial markets remain in absolute chaos as virus concerns run rampant. US stocks lost 5% on Wednesday and futures point to another 5% plunge when Wall Street opens today, after President Trump announced overnight that he will ban all travel from Europe for the next month to slow the spread of the virus.

European stocks didn’t escape the carnage, with most indices down ~6% today not just on concerns of business disruptions due to the travel ban, but also due to an increasingly worrisome flow of European news. Italy closed down most of its stores yesterday, while one country after another is closing down schools and banning public events.