As Virus Spreads, Prospect of Economic Hit Drives Stocks Lower

On Wednesday, Google said it was temporarily shutting its offices in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and would limit employee travel in the region because of the outbreak. Google also said it told employees who are returning from China or who have immediate family members returning from the country to work from home for at least 14 days from their departure date.

And on Thursday Coca-Cola executives told analysts on a conference call that its offices and a “good number” of its factories are closed in China, while executives from the industrial conglomerate Danaher described the outbreak as “a very challenging situation to get a clear handle on.” Policymakers are also noting that it is too soon to predict the overall impact of the virus.

“It’s very early days and we are, like others, monitoring this quite closely, as you would expect, and, like Chair Powell, I don’t want to speculate in terms of orders of magnitude,” Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said at a news conference on Thursday. “It’s a fast-moving issue,” he added.

Stocks in Tokyo and Seoul closed down 1.7 percent, while in Hong Kong they fell 2.6 percent. China’s markets remain closed for an extended holiday until Feb. 3 but investors punished the stocks of Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong.

Traders in Taipei, returning from the Lunar New Year holiday, pushed the market down by 5.8 percent.

Exchanges in Europe, including those in Paris and London, opened in the red, many trading down more than 1 percent.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/stock-market-today.html?emc=rss&partner=rss