Billionaire Richard Branson attempted to shrug off coronavirus fears as he promoted the launch of his first cruise ship aimed at young travellers in Dover today.

The adult-only cruise ship is meant to have a ‘festival environment’, featuring sundeck yoga, a vinyl record store, a tattoo studio, 20 restaurants, and a running track, with entertainment including DJ sets and drag queens.

The first boat, dubbed the “Scarlet Lady”, will be based in the US and Caribbean. Branson said he did not expect its success to be impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

Its launch is unfortunate timing. Thousands of passengers have been quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship since early February, when 10 people on board were diagnosed with the Covid-19 strain of the disease. Dozens of Britons on board are still waiting to be repatriated.

However, Branson believes the cruise industry is set to grow.

Obviously what happened in Japan was horrendously unfortunate. But I think the longer-term impact will be negligible. I think the fact that we’re going out of America means that I don’t think we’ll suffer. People are booking as much as they’ve ever booked.

The FTSE 100 has recovered some of its losses this afternoon.

London’s blue chip index is trading just 0.09% lower in afternoon trading, having started the session down by 0.6%.

That is despite a 0.4% rise in the pound versus the US dollar, which tends to affect the attractiveness of multinational stocks that benefit when foreign currencies are stronger.

The Financial Times (£) has published the first major interview with former Goldman Sachs boss Lloyds Blankfein since he retired from the CEO role in 2018.

Twitter is already alight with some of his more surprising comments, which include insisting that (at least by his measure) he is not rich:

Blankfein insists he is “well-to-do”, not rich. “I can’t even say ‘rich’,” he insists. “I don’t feel that way. I don’t behave that way.”

He says he has an apartment in Miami as well as New York. But he abjures most of the trappings.

“If I bought a Ferrari, I’d be worried about it getting scratched,” he jokes. “Ken Griffin [the Chicago-based hedge fund billionaire] buys all these houses. He’s out there every minute, calling the office. It can’t make any sense to people outside.”

Despite the positive headlines from the latest PMI reading for the manufacturing sector, there are some warning signals for the road ahead, writes the Guardian’s economics correspondent Richard Partington.

The latest snapshot suggests that the outbreak of the coronavirus in China has weighed on overseas orders for UK factories. In a worrying sign for future output, some orders from clients in Asia have been cancelled altogether.

Extended factory shutdowns in China amid quarantine efforts also look to be causing delays in supplies of materials and components to British manufacturers who depend on them, with stocks falling at the fastest pace for more than seven years.

In a stark reflection of the troubles ahead, supplier delivery times plunged the most since surveys began in 1992, even exceeding the previous record seen during the UK fuel protests in 2000 when trucks were left standing idle.

Manufacturers will no doubt hope the efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus will be lifted soon, lest they face continued disruption that could weigh on output in Britain.

Duncan Brock, group director at CIPs, which compiles the survey, notes:

These disruptions are threatening global supply chains as businesses look for new supply routes away from the epicentre of the outbreak whilst under pressure to maintain normal business levels.

Regardless of whether the UK manufacturing PMI figure is being interpretted by some analysts as a false positive, the pound is now trading nearly half a percent higher against the US dollar at 1.294.

(But before you get too excited, that’s only the highest level since...Wednesday)

Investors are turning to safe haven assets amid coronavirus fears, sending gold prices to a seven year high of $1,634.27 per ounce this morning.

Car sales in China have collapsed by 92% as the coronavirus shutdown wreaks havoc on the automotive industry, writes Mark Sweney.

The China Passenger Car Association said that “barely anybody” has looked to buy cars in the first half of February and most dealerships have remained closed as the coronavirus shutdown takes its toll on businesses across China.

The plummeting domestic car sales figures – 96% down in the first week of February and 92% down across the first half of the month – come days after Jaguar Land Rover revealed it is currently making no sales in China.

“There was barely anybody at car dealers in the first week of February as most people stayed at home,” said Cui Dongshu, the secretary general of the CPCA. “Very few dealerships opened in the first weeks of February and they have had very little customer traffic.”

Only 4,909 cars were sold in the first 16 days of February, down from 59,930 in the same period last year, and in a market where more than 25m cars were sold in 2019.

You can read the full story here.

Reuters reporter Andy Bruce highlights the same point, that increased delivery times which were factored into UK manufacturing PMI for February actually amount to a “false signal on strength” in the figures:

ING’s developed markets economist James Smith says the coronavirus impact on supply chains is overshadowing positive UK PMI data.

He notes an ‘alarming’ drop in the supplier delivery component of the manufacturing PMI survey, which is a sign that deliveries are taking longer to fulfil.

While delays are usually a sign that suppliers are struggling to keep up with a boost in orders (often a positive sign), in this case coronavirus is likely the culprit. It follows reports that Chinese factories are being disrupted by closures following the outbreak.

He says:

Slightly alarmingly, the nine-point drop in the supplier delivery component of the PMI – a sign that deliveries are taking longer – is the sharpest month-on-month slide in the survey’s history (since 1992).

In normal times, an increase in supplier delivery times would be interpreted as a positive signal. It is taken as a signal that firms are grappling with more orders, such that it is taking longer to fulfil them. In this case, though, the rationale is rather less positive – and suggests that not all of the rise in the manufacturing PMI is for ‘good’ reasons.

One caveat is that the PMIs can overstate the impact of sudden shocks. The surveys simply tell us how many firms are reporting deteriorating levels of stocks/delivery times, but not necessarily by how much.

Either way, it suggests the sector could face a challenging couple of months and we could see a short-term hit to production as a result.

Industries hit by the coronavirus are expecting governments to step up spending to help offset the economic impacts of the outbreak.

At the very least, the IATA airline trade body seems to be pricing in fiscal stimulus over the coming months:

We don’t yet know exactly how the outbreak will develop and whether it will follow the same profile as SARS or not.

Governments will use fiscal and monetary policy to try to offset the adverse economic impacts. Some relief may be seen in lower fuel prices for some airlines, depending on how fuel costs have been hedged.

The full statement can be found here.

Fraser Munro, a public sector finance statistician at the Office for National Statistics, gives some context to the government borrowing figures:

The PMI reading has helped push the pound higher, with sterling now trading up 0.3% versus the US dollar.

(Correction: Apologies for the typo below, where the manufacturing output index figures were mistaken for the manufacturing PMI as a whole. That has been corrected in the original post)

Celebrations over slightly higher-than-expected German factory output may be short-lived.

Danske Bank says there has been a drop in shipping activity, signalling a greater fall in manufacturing output. That could feed through into manufacturing PMI data very soon:

The eurozone’s PMI data suggests the economy performed reasonably well despite supply chain and travel disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

IHS Markit’s chief business economist Chris Williamson says:

The eurozone economy managed to pick up some momentum again in February despite many companies having been disrupted in various ways by the coronavirus, which caused supply problems and showed signs of hitting travel and tourism numbers in particular.

The flash PMI has climbed to a six-month high, consistent with GDP growing at a quarterly rate approaching 0.2%.

However, he warned that the outlook is much less certain

In particular, the widespread delivery delays seen in February bode ill for production in March unless new deliveries can be secured.

While the February survey data are welcome news in a month in which media headlines have been dominated by fears of economic growth being hit by the COVID-19 outbreak, the full immediate impact may not yet be apparent.

Market analysts are surprisingly upbeat about the German manufacturing data, which is helping support the eurozone currency.

The euro is now trading around 0.3% higher against the US dollar at €1.08.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, says:

Investors are cheerful that the German manufacturing numbers have sharply bounced back up, it certainly strengthens’ the bull case for the Euro.

DATA FLASH: French PMI data is a mix-bag

Flash manufacturing PMI out of France disappointed, coming in at 49.7 which is below the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction. Analysts had been expecting a reading of 50.7.

However, the French service sector performed better than forecast, with service sector PMI coming in at 52.6 compared to a Reuters poll for 51.3.

Service sector performance supported composite PMI readings for the months, resulting in a measure of 51.9, above forecasts for 51.0.

If the coronavirus ends up resulting in a contraction in passenger growth for Asian carriers, it will be reminiscent of the decline that took place at the height of the SARS virus outbreak in 2003.

That was the only decline for regional airlines in nearly two decades.

European stock markets are in the red at the start of trading:

• FTSE 100 is down -0.6%
• German DAX is down -0.6%
• French CAC 40 is down -0.5%
• Spain’s IBEX is down -0.5%