Stock Markets Skid Worldwide As Virus Infections Keep Soaring

Private US employers cut 27,000 jobs last month; US manufacturing activity contracted in March, reversing after two months of slight growth

US stocks joined a worldwide downdraft on Wednesday as more signs piled up of the economic and physical pain being caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

The S&P 500 dropped close to 3% in midday trading after President Donald Trump warned Americans to brace for “one of the roughest two or three weeks we’ve ever had in our country.” The White House is projecting that 100,000 to 240,000 people in the US could die from COVID-19. Long-term Treasury yields sank as investors moved into safer investments.

Japanese stocks took some of the world’s heaviest losses after a survey of business sentiment there fell to its worst result in seven years. The Nikkei 225 dropped 4.5%. Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 3% after big banks there scrapped dividend payments, part of a worldwide effort by companies and households alike to conserve cash. Germany’s DAX lost 3.5%.

Stocks worldwide have tumbled this year as the coronavirus pandemic forces economies into what is expected to be a steep, sudden recession. The S&P 500 just closed out its worst quarter since 2008 with a 20% loss.

Businesses are shutting down, and people are staying at home in hopes of slowing the spread of the virus. It’s the economic equivalent of putting a patient in a medically induced coma, said Anwiti Bahuguna, head of multi-asset strategy at Columbia Threadneedle Investments: “a calculated, temporary risk with the goal of establishing greater longer-term health.” The problem for investors is that no one knows how long the coma will last and how severe the damage will be during it.