The rout of European stock markets continued until a seventh consecutive session, as some investors purchased insurance before the weekend and the number of coronavirus infections continued to increase.
A key manufacturing investigation is to be carried out in China on Saturday, and South Korean authorities are expected to publish the results of tests on members of a Shincheonji church who they believe may harbor a large number of cases.
“Do you want to stay long in the weekend, even at these lower prices, when a number of worrying headlines could potentially appear on the screens?”, Analysts said. Rabobank thought aloud.
At the end of trade, the pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 3.54% to 375.65, while it was down 3.86% for Germany Dax to 11,890.35, while the FTSE Mibtel was 3.58% less than 21,984.21.
Travel and leisure stocks continued to fall, with the Stoxx 600 sector gauge dropping an additional 3.62% – but down from its worst session levels.
Meanwhile, first month Brent crude oil futures fell 4.02% to $ 50.09 a barrel on ICE.
The stock of the French media giant Lagardère was the least efficient on the Stoxx 600 following its annual figures.
The Dutch biotechnology group arGEN-X SE was another big culprit after announcing that its full-year net loss more than doubled to € 158.2 million.
Overnight, the US benchmark S&P 500 fell into what is known as correction territory after closing more than 10% from its February 19 peak as traders began to s worry aloud if a global recession looms just around the corner.
And the World Health Organization said the number of coronavirus cases outside of China had increased by 746, up from 459 the day before, amid news of the first cases of viruses detected in Nigeria and New -Zealand, parallel to the death of Ambassador of Iran to the Vatican.
The latest batch of economic data on the euro area was mixed.
INSEE said that French household consumption had declined at a rate of 1.1% over a month in January, underestimating the consensus forecast a drop of 0.2% by a wide margin.
In contrast, German unemployment claims fell by 10,000 in February, defying forecasts of an increase of 4,500, although the number of vacancies fell by another 4,000, signaling an underlying downward trend, according to Claus. Vistesen at the Macroeconomics Pantheon.
