One last thing: despite a late mini-recovery, Wall Street has closed in the red.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down about 253 points or 1%, while the S&P 500 lost about 52 points, or 1.7%, to close near 2,972.

So, a poor day. But thanks to strong gains on Monday and Wednesday, the Dow finished the week up 1.8%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.6%.

Goodnight! (Again)

The UK government has asked supermarkets to increase availability of home delivery services to help people in self-isolation with coronavirus get access to food and other essentials.

My colleague Sarah Butler explains:

Top supermarket executives held a call with George Eustice, the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs on Friday afternoon. The teleconference came after the health secretary, Matt Hancock, claimed he had been in touch with supermarkets and he was “confident” food supplies would not run out.

However, several supermarket executives told the Guardian that until Friday there had been no communication from the government about managing potential shortages during the outbreak.

Ben Chu of the Independent has written about how rising anxiety about the economic impact of the global Covid-19 outbreak has driven the yield (or interest rate) on government debt to record lows:

The recent dip is certainly driven by fears about the threat of a pandemic.

Traders expect the Bank of England to be forced to cut interest rates relatively soon to try to help support the UK economy in the face of this shock.

Reductions in the official short-term Bank interest rate tend to reduce traded UK government bond yields.

Also, with stock markets tanking, there’s generalised fear about holding riskier assets.

Tom di Galoma, managing director of Treasurys trading at Seaport Global Securities, says stocks are falling because:

“The COVID-19 infection rate is multiplying and more states in the U.S. are imposing emergency orders”.

Stocks are sliding as the number of coronavirus cases in the US keeps rising, with 33 now reported in New York state.

Today’s sell-off is threatening to push the S&P 500 to a fresh five-month closing low.

The broad index of US stocks is currently down 2.6%, or 78 points, at 2,947. It was briefly lower last week, but closed lower since mid-October 2019.

Oil producers, banks and tech stocks are the worst-performing sectors, with miners trudging lose behind.

Nearly half of companies have mentioned Coronavirus in their recent financial reports, spots Michael McDonough of Bloomberg (and very few, if any, were positive mentions, I bet)

The firm behind toilet roll brand Andrex says it is taking steps to ensure supplies are available, after stock-piling and panic buying this week:

Britain’s FTSE 100 has shed over 12.5% of its value in the last fortnight, after today’s selloff sent the index below last week’s lows:

A little context:

This week had started with some optimism that the coronavirus outbreak might be contained, and that government and central banks might steer their economics through the weeds.

Those hopes have fizzled in the last couple of days, though, as cases of Covid-19 have jumped in the US, the UK and Europe.

Most stocks have suffered, but there are some serious casualties in London, as Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell explains:.

Investor fears that appetite would wane for spring and summer holidays resulted in TUI’s shares falling by 37% in value over the past two weeks. The sharp decline in its valuation cost the travel company its place in the FTSE 100 with the result of quarterly reshuffle demoting the business to the FTSE 250 index.

“Outsourcing group Capita lost 47% of its value over the past week after its restructuring was costing more and taking longer than expected.

“Cineworld failed to convince the market that it was in good health. The postponement of the latest James Bond film, together with growing concerns about its very large amount of debt linked to two major acquisitions, led investors to worry about the state of the business. Its shares fell nearly 30% over the week.”

After tumbling again today, European stock markets have closed at their lowest point since August 2019.

The Stoxx 600 has closed 3.7%, as the nervous recovery earlier this week was wiped out in heavy selling yesterday and today.

Energy stock were the worst hit, after today’s oil output cut deal collapsed.

How bad is it today?

Well, well-known Wall Street trader Peter Tuchman has captured the mood on another grizzly day:

Every sector of the Dow is falling today, as investors ignore Donald Trump’s claim that Covid-19 will “go away”.

My colleague Joanna Walters explains:

“You have to be calm,” Trump said at the White House this morning before departing to tour the tornado damage in Tennessee and shortly after signing an $8.3bn emergency spending bill to deal with the virus.

“It will go away,” he said. “We have very low numbers [of confirmed cases] compared to many countries throughout the world. Our numbers are lower than almost anyone … deaths, is it 11?” It is.

Investors, though, fear that total could rise sharply - triggering today’s selloff:

Fears are growing that the coronavirus crisis will force some European companies to default on their bonds.

The FT explains:

A measure of strain in European credit markets leapt to its highest level in four years on Friday, suggesting that investors are bracing for a wave of defaults despite a vertiginous plunge in government bond yields.

The iTraxx Crossover index, which measures the perceived risk of defaults by European companies with low credit ratings, surged above 380 basis points on Friday — a 100bp rise in just three days — to its highest since the summer of 2016.

Sky News are reporting that Facebook is closing its London offices and telling staff to work from home after an employee was diagnosed with COVID-19.

The employee who was diagnosed with the virus was normally based in Singapore, butvisited the London offices between 24-26 February.

The slump in demand caused by Covid-19 has forced Icelandair to cancel around 80 flights in March and April, it says. That’s roughly 2% of its flight schedule for the two months.

Nearly every stock on the Dow is falling again today.

JP Morgan is leading the selloff, after announcing that chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is recovering from emergency heart surgery.

Exxon Mobile are down 3.6% as hopes of an Opec-Russia oil supply cut deal fade.

Shares in Lufthansa’s rivals have jumped.

British Airways owner International Airlines Group is now leading the (seven) FTSE 100 risers, up by 1.8%. Air France-KLM has now gained 5.5%, while Ryanair has pared some of its losses.

Oil prices are really under pressure as it appears that an Opec deal with Russia is not going to be forthcoming.

Brent crude futures are now down by 5.6% today, hitting lows of $46.70 – having hit $71 on 8 July. That’s down by a third in under two months!

West Texas Intermediate crude futures have lost 5.9%, breaking below $43 per barrel. It was above $60 per barrel at the start of the year.

It has been quite a day on the bond markets: every time you check it appears that yields on widely traded debt are plumbing new lows, as surging demand for safe havens pushes up prices.

The UK 10-year gilt yield fell as low as 0.206% in afternoon trading, having started the day at 0.33%.

The yield on the US 10-year Treasury fell to 0.66%, only three days after it first broke the 1% mark for the first time.

And in Germany 10-year and 30-year Bunds fell further into record negative-yielding territory, at 0.746% and 0.335% respectively. That means that investors are effectively paying to lend to the German government (although at least holders will still get back their principal when the bonds expire – something that is clearly valued at times like these).

Larry Kudlow, the director of Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, is trying to reassure markets on US television.

Kudlow may not have an absolutely stellar record on predictions, but there is some evidence that the US economy was not doing too badly before the outbreak – not least the strong US jobs data from today.

It was “another month of impressive jobs growth”, said the Guardian’s US business editor Dominic Rushe, in his report:

The underlying pace could help once the outbreak has bottomed out, according to the respected Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser to Allianz:

By my reckoning the FTSE 100 is on course for the worst daily performance since 24 August 2015.

London’s blue-chip stocks fell by 4.67% on that day, when fears abounded over the Chinese economy. Before that we have to look back to 2011 for a comparable fall.

Some coronavirus reactions (even if the markets aren’t really moving in response to it).

Robert Alster, head of investment services at Close Brothers Asset Management, said:

Coronavirus poses a threat to the nascent recovery in manufacturing, and the vital service sector.

Before Covid-19 spread, the US economy was already showing symptoms of slowing, with weakening employment data likely to offer waning support to consumption growth. Disruption the virus has caused elsewhere in the world may cancel out the better momentum facilitated by progress on trade, but what matters more is the domestic impact on US consumption.

James Ingram, an investment manager at MB Capital, said:

In the midst of all of the reporting on Coronavirus this was potentially going to be the most easily missed non-farm payroll announcement in recent history. We had a strong healthy start to the year with January’s number being revised upwards from 225,000 to 273,000 and today’s number for February coming in much stronger than expected also at 273,000. Couple this with the panicked rate cut of 0.5% by the US Fed and it places the economy and the stock market in a great position.

My only fear is a weaker [reading] may have had a larger impact and created the urgency for the US to consider further stimulus, which would have buoyed the market and helped calm fears about the risk Coronavirus could have on ebbing away business revenues over the near future.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Avatrade, said:

There is so much panic in the markets – in fact, the only time we have seen something similar to this was during the financial crisis. However, it is important to keep in mind that we have a serious discount available on the equity markets and it is about time to start preparing your shopping list.

The US employment data show an economy running pretty hot. It would have been looking very promising for President Donald Trump going into a November election – before the coronavirus put paid to that.

In other circumstances the US Federal Reserve’s 0.5 percentage point emergency interest rate on Tuesday could well have been a rise.

Wall Street futures have barely moved after the release, despite a massive beat.

S&P 500 futures are still down by 3.1%.

S&P 500 futures prices are down by 3.2% so far today. It would take an almighty surprise for the non-farm payrolls to make even a small dent in that ahead of the Wall Street opening bell.

US airlines are due to get battered, with United Airlines down by 7% in pre-market trading (having lost 13% yesterday). Delta Air Lines is expected to lose 4%.

And bank shares also look like they’re due to fall steeply.

The coronavirus outbreak is dominating market sentiment at the moment to the extent that traders are apparently barely watching the US non-farm payrolls data for February.

The snapshot of how the US economy is faring – most notably in terms of how many jobs were created during the month – is usually seen as one of the key economic data points for the world’s largest economy.

Economists don’t appear to believe there will be any major effect from the coronavirus outbreak visible yet. On average they estimate that 175,000 jobs were added, down from 225,000 in January but still a strong number.

But this was all before the coronavirus outbreak really threatened the US. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, went as far as to say:

This afternoon’s US payrolls report looks set to be one of the most meaningless report in the last 12 years.

Here are the numbers from the past year, in any case.

Nissan has revealed that it has spent £400m in its Sunderland plant as it prepares to build its new Qashqai SUV.

It came as the Japanese carmaker today launched a new £52m metal press line to make body panels for the cars.

The Sunderland plant – Britain’s largest – became emblematic of the possible effects of the 2016 Brexit vote on the car industry. However, it has faced difficulties, most notably the withdrawal of a previous decision to build the X-Trail SUV there – a major loss of investment. It also stopped making premium Infiniti cars there.

Nissan said that the £400m invested for Qashqai came on top of the £100m invested for the launch of new Juke. It said that was part of an overall £1bn planned investment into the plant by Nissan over five years.

Here’s some lunchtime reading (at least for those joining us from the UK and western Europe):

• Huawei row: A group of eight Conservative rebel MPs, including four former cabinet ministers, have put down an amendment calling on the government to eliminate all Huawei technology from the UK’s mobile phone networks by the end of 2022.
• Caffeine fix: UK consumers will spend more than £4bn getting their caffeine fix from high street coffee shops this year, to hit an all-time high.
• Not building bridges: The national infrastructure strategy to invest £100bn in boosting the economy and tackling the climate crisis is expected to be delayed until after the budget.

And some longer reports from earlier:

• Fraud alert: Coronavirus scams have tricked the UK public out of £800,000, according to the police.
• Jagged performance: Jaguar Land Rover suffered an 85% slump in sales in China last month as the coronavirus kept buyers indoors and most dealerships shut.

The FTSE 100 has lost 3.1%, after hitting lows of 6,466 points – a whisker away from levels not seen since 2016 (when sterling’s EU referendum plunge boosted UK shares).

S&P 500 futures are down by 2.2%, suggesting more pain is in store for Wall Street.

Anglo American shares have dropped by 8.4% after a majority-owned subsidiary of the FTSE 100 miner said it would be unable to honour its contracts.

Anglo American Platinum declared force majeure as it will be unable to process any materials for 80 days after a smelting plant was hit by an explosion. It cut its 2020 production outlook.

It looks like it could be a white-knuckle ride for oil markets today as Russia and Opec bargain over who will shoulder the biggest burden in cutting crude production.

Some interesting context: the increasing heft of the US oil industry has made Opec’s plans much trickier. The US does not take part in the Opec negotiations.

On foreign exchange markets, the US dollar is on its way to its worst week since 2016 thanks to expectations of more rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

The euro gained 0.7% on Friday against the US dollar, breaking through the $1.13 mark. Sterling gained 0.3% against the greenback to hover around $1.30 for the first time in almost a fortnight. The Japanese yen also benefited from the search for safe havens, gaining 1% against the dollar.

Collapsing US bond yields and the promise of lowest interest rates from the Fed make the dollar much less attractive.

Kit Juckes, chief global foreign exchange strategist at Société Générale, is looking ahead to the US non-farm payrolls later, which could add another element to the pot for investors trying to work out what’s going on.

The last non-farms reading showed that the US economy created 225,000 jobs during January. The February reading is expected to be relatively strong.

Juckes said:

Today’s headline act is supposed to be the US jobs report. Consensus expects a 175k gain. Our economists forecast a 178k gain. The market is only going to care if we get a shocking number and even then, it’s only prematurely weak data that the capacity to shock.

Fraudsters have immediately latched on to coronavirus, with fake ‘Center for Disease Control’ emails and other scams already tricking the UK public out of £800,000, according to the police.

The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) this morning issued an urgent scam warning after identifying 21 cases of fraud involving coronavirus in February.

Ten of the frauds involved desperate buyers of face masks, with one person paying £15,000 for masks that were never delivered. Other frauds involve emails and texts purporting to be from research organisation’s affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The NFIB said:

They claim to be able to provide the recipient with a list of coronavirus infected people in their area. In order to access this information, the victim needs to click on a link, which leads to a malicious website, or is asked to make a payment in bitcoin.

Individuals can report fraud or cybercrime to Action Fraud any time of the day or night using its online reporting tool at actionfraud.police.uk

European banking shares have fallen by 4% to hit their lowest point since 2009 – when the sector was still feeling the effects of the global financial crisis.

That’s according to the Stoxx Europe 600 banks index.

Oil prices are also taking a hammering this morning, with investors doubting whether Opec production cuts will be enough to sustain prices – given the big fall in demand caused by coronavirus disruption.

The price of Brent crude futures (the North Sea oil benchmark) has fallen by 2.7% today to lows of $48.54 per barrel. If it falls below $48.40 it will be the lowest since summer 2017. West Texas Intermediate futures prices – North America’s benchmark – have also lost 2.4%.

The Guardian’s Jillian Ambrose reported on the production cuts last night:

The world’s largest oil-producing nations plan to avert an oil market crash by cutting millions of barrels from their daily production, but traders fear the economic impact of Covid-19 could still drive global market prices to multi-year lows.

Read more here:

Back on markets’ coronavirus reaction, the pivot out of riskier equities appears to be gaining pace.

Losses on the Euro Stoxx 600 index are now 3.4%. The FTSE 100 has lost 3.1% – take a look at all of the fallers who have lost more than 5%.

Demand for gold – traditionally seen as a safe-haven asset alongside government debt – has also increased.

The spot price for the yellow metal has risen by 0.9% today to hit a high of $1,687 per troy ounce. That’s only a dollar below the $1,688 level hit on 24 February, which was the highest since the start of 2013.

Here’s the latest on efforts to stop the coronavirus spread around the world.

• Globally the number of confirmed cases is approaching 100,000, with more than 3,000 deaths.
  
• The Vatican City has reported its first case.
• An adviser to Iran’s foreign minister has died of the disease. Iran has been the worst affected country outside of China.
• The Chinese province of Hubei has reported no new cases outside of its capital, Wuhan, for the first time since the outbreak began.
  

You can follow all the updates on the global spread of the virus on the main coronavirus live blog:

Yields are dropping as I type: the US 10-year just hit 0.695% and the UK 10-year 0.246%.

The FTSE 100 has slipped a little more in the first 90 minutes on the London Stock Exchange: it’s now down by 2.2%, with publishing and events company Informa the worst performer.

At 6,560 points it’s only 100 points above the lows hit at the end of last week.

The mid-cap FTSE 250 (with a bigger domestic focus) has lost 2.7%.

It’s much the same across Europe. Germany’s Dax is down by 2.3% and France’s Cac 40 has lost 2.5%.

JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is recovering from emergency heart surgery, with his two deputies taking over his duties as he recuperates, the US bank has announced.

The lender publicly released an internal memo confirming that the 63-year-old executive, who has led the US’s biggest bank by assets for more than a decade, experienced a tear in his heart’s main artery, which was caught early and treated successfully.

The Guardian’s Joanna Partridge has the full report here:

British house prices rose by 2.8% in the year to February, slower than January but still stronger than before the general election in December, according to Halifax.

The bank said that demand has remained steady, with house prices increasing by 0.3% in February – althoug it warned that the coronavirus outbreak could weigh on sentiment.

Russell Galley, Halifax managing director, said:

Much like we saw in January, the increases seen in February reflect the continued improvement of key market indicators. The sustained level of buyer and seller activity is strong compared to recent years, with positive employment conditions and a competitive mortgage market continuing to support demand.

Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY Item Club, a forecaster, said:

A stream of recent firmer data and surveys suggest that the housing market has changed up a gear after a lacklustre 2019 (with particular softness around the third quarter).

Certainly there is compelling evidence that the housing market got a leg-up from increased optimism and reduced uncertainties following December’s decisive election as well as greater near-term clarity on Brexit with the UK having left the EU on 31 January with a deal.

From Bond to bonds: UK government debt has not been left out of the global rush for safe havens.

The yield on the 10-year gilt fell to 0.28% – down from about 0.8% at the start of the year, before the coronavirus’s outbreak became clear. Yields, which move inversely to prices, have plummeted as demand for safer bonds has soared.

Perhaps the spread of the disease will see investors effectively paying to lend money to the government, with a negative yield?

Looking across the FTSE 100 risers... there are none.

But it’s also striking that there are not any huge moves down either – the worst faller is Tui, leading the travel companies on their way down, but only by 4.6%. It’s a proper broad selloff.

Carnival, the cruise operator, has lost 3.8% (Carnival is the only company listed on both the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 – today’s markets trivia).

European stocks have followed their Asian counterparts back down – adding another big move to a dramatic fortnight on equity markets.

The FTSE 100 has fallen by 1.8% in opening trades, France’s Cac 40 has slumped by 2%, and shares in Italy have fallen by 2.5%.

The Euro Stoxx index has lost 1.6% – with only two gainers across 600 companies.

(With US non-farm payrolls data due later we could be set for yet another bumpy day.)