Bitcoin is continuing to slump -- at a pace that dwarfs the stock market tumbles today:

Although other assets have suffered similarly steep declines in recent weeks:

Tho’ markets in the US and Europe are closed, the futures markets are still open.

And they suggest markets are going to fall again tomorrow, with the German DAX currently 3% lower on IG’s overnight futures trading.

Not a good sign for Friday. But then, as nothing’s improved, why should it be?

Two weeks ago, the Dow suffered its biggest points fall ever -- 1,190 points, or 4.4%.

That felt like a lot at the time. Today’s slump is more than TWICE as bad, in both points and percentage terms.

I quite forgot to give you the Dow’s closing price! Sorry. Probably the shock.

Here it is, and the tech-focused Nasdaq too.

• Dow: down 2,352 points or 9.99% at 21,200.
• Nasdaq: down 750 points or 9.43% at 7,201

Baseball’s only sport. Just like the markets are only money.

But the postponement of America’s Major League Baseball season tonight brings home to Wall Street just how much of an impact Covid-19 is going to have,

With just 10 minutes to go, Wall Street is still showing heavy losses again.

The S&P 500 is down 8%, which means it will be in a bear market when the closing bell rings, while the Dow Jones industrial average is down 2,120 points or 9%.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents most of the world’s airlines, has warned that President Donald Trump’s shock ban on visitors from most of Europe could drive some carriers out of business:

IATA had already predicted that the crisis could wipe out over $100bn of revenue - but even that extreme scenario didn’t include such severe measures.

Société Générale strategist Albert Edwards, who has long been predicting an economic downturn, has warned today that stock markets are still very vulnerable - and shouldn’t be regarded as at bargain levels.

Edwards (known as a perma-bear in City circles) wrote:

“The toxic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic’s bursting of the Fed’s ‘everything bubble’ has collided with the grotesquely over-leveraged and vulnerable US corporate sector.

This puts equity markets in an even more vulnerable position.”

Here’s a number for you: Europe’s blue-chip stocks have lost €3tn (£2.7tn) in market value since hitting their highest level on record last month.

The last three weeks have wiped out almost seven years of gains for Europe’s largest companies (including many of those on the FTSE 100, Germany’s Dax and Italy’s FTSE MIB, amongst others). The index has been running since 1998.

This is the calculation from the kind people at Stoxx’s owner, Deutsche Boerse:

On February 19 the Stoxx Europe 600 reached its all time high with an index level of 433.90.

The corresponding free-float market cap of all constituents on that day summed up to €9.372 trillion.

As of close today (March 12) the free-float market cap is €6.372tn (sic), meaning €3tn of market cap was lost.

And this is what that looks like (the vertical lines on the right-hand side):

A worrying report from Reuters on the Treasury market, suggesting there are serious issues even after the Federal Reserve stepped in.

The promise of $1.5tn of liquidity is a sign that the Fed is taking the problems about as seriously as they come. The Treasury market (for US government bonds) is the benchmark for prices all over the economy, meaning any disruptions could be very serious across the financial system.

Here’s part of the Reuters report:

Liquidity in the $17tn Treasuries market has deteriorated to its worse levels since the financial crisis, traders said, and some market participants are concerned that conditions could lead to investors being forced to sell assets across markets.

Fears about the spreading coronavirus and how badly it will impact the global economy have sent investors running from stocks and into lower-risk assets, including Treasuries, which hit record low yields on Monday.

“Liquidity has definitely dried up, it’s the poorest I’ve seen since the financial crisis,” said Justin Lederer, an interest rate strategist and trader at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York.

Conditions in Treasuries have not been orderly. Investors this week said they struggled to get satisfactory market prices for some bonds while the spread between the cost of buying and selling bonds widened dramatically, making it more expensive to trade.

A recap: here’s the damage from across Europe on a day that will be remembered long into the future (for all the wrong reasons).

• The FTSE 100 fell by 10.87%, its most since 1987 (the day after Black Monday). That was the second worst daily fall since the index started on 3 January 1984.
  
• The Euro Stoxx 600, which tracks shares across Europe and the UK, fell by 11.48% – the worst day since that record began in 1998.
• Italy’s FTSE MIB lost 16.92%, its worst loss ever.
• Germany’s Dax index fell by 12.24%; France’s Cac 40 lost 12.28%.
• The car industry and the insurance sector were the worst performing sectors.

Market participants are shellshocked. Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said:

Markets are at breaking point, there is a real systemic risk now with financial markets in complete turmoil over the coronavirus, Treasury markets showing immense signs of stress and a scramble for dollars whacking FX markets all over the place.

Today has been utterly brutal. European shares had their worst day ever and it is not unduly pessimistic to suggest that panic has taken hold.

US stocks are almost back where they were before the NY Fed intervened.

The S&P 500 is down by 7.9%. The Dow Jones industrial average has lost 8.3%, the Nasdaq has lost 7.7%.

Oil prices were briefly boosted by the Fed’s intervention in the markets, but the good cheer did not last.

A barrel of Brent crude, the North Sea benchmark, will set you back $32.71, according to futures prices. That represents a fall of 8.6% today.

Prices were briefly almost at $36 per barrel only this morning.

Here’s the long haul: a chart showing oil prices since 2015.

On a normal day that would be the headline gracing newspaper front pages. Today it feels almost like a footnote.

It’s worth taking a look back at some of the moves among UK shares on the FTSE 100 and the FTSE 250 today.

Here’s the picture of the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 (there aren’t any gainers):

The FTSE 250 fell by 9.35% – its third worst day. Among the mid-caps:

• Finablr, the owner of Travelex, lost 79.9% of its value today. It said it has launched an internal investigation into its financial situation and that it will take steps to address a liquidity squeeze.
• Premier Oil lost 45% after a lender send it should abandon proposed acquistions to save cash.
• Go Ahead, the operator of buses and rail services such as Southeastern, dropped 31.5% after it said it would be hit in the second half of the year.
  

In fact, the Fed’s actions in total represent more than $1.5tn in liquidity: $500bn for the three-month repo market today, followed tomorrow by $500bn in that market and $500bn in the one-month repo market.

Seema Shah, chief strategist, Principal Global Investors, said:

The Fed finally stepped up to the plate today, recognising the desperate need for aid from several parts of capital markets. By expanding its balance sheet significantly, injecting over $1.5tn into short-term funding markets, the Fed is acting aggressively to prevent a liquidity crisis from taking hold of the global financial system – a fear that had been driving equity markets lower and credit spreads wider.

The relief has been immediate, with stocks paring their losses as investors stop their indiscriminate selling. It remains to be seen how long risk assets will continue to be supported against a backdrop of global quarantines, travel bans, and spreading infection. But the Fed has certainly fulfilled its role of lender of last resort for markets today, injecting not just funds, but reassurance that someone is watching over them.

The actions of the NY Fed (which is responsible for market operations on behalf of its parent, the US Federal Reserve) have sparked talk of a return of quantitative easing.

It’s “QE4”, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. He pointed to a modification of the Fed’s $60bn purchases of bonds, which it carries out to manage the stock of assets built up under quantitative easing. The Fed will widen the purchases to a broader range of debt.

Shepherdson said:

This is a full-blown crisis response operation, intended to make it abundantly clear that the Fed will not allow liquidity to dry up. [...]

It’s inconceivable to us that the Fed will not extend these operations; they can’t do anything which reduces policy accommodation, even at the margin.

In other words, we expect the Fed to purchase $60bn of securities across the spectrum for the foreseeable future: QE4 is here. This is a world away from the bill purchases, which effectively just allowed banks to swap bills for reserves at the Fed. This action will offset the inevitable downward pressure on money supply growth as economic activity contracts. It should weaken the dollar and raise asset prices, other things equal. They won’t be, but these actions should limit the damage. We expect the FOMC to announce indefinite purchases at next week’s meeting, alongside a rate cut of at least 50bp. Now it’s up to Congress to fire the fiscal bazooka, the bigger and quicker the better.

Prime minister Boris Johnson has described the coronavirus outbreak as the “worst public health crisis for a generation”.

The true number of cases is higher, “perhaps much higher”, than the latest figures suggest, he said.

More families, many more families, are going to lose loved ones before their time.

You can follow those developments here:

The $500bn operation came too late for European markets, but it appears to have given limited succour to US investors.

The US repo markets are a crucial part of the financial system, allowing banks and other financial institutions to borrow money against US government Treasury bonds. The NY Fed’s statement said that there had been problems in transactions in this market.

However, the liquidity actions will not address the underlying economic weaknesses that are scaring investors.

Here’s the full statement from the New York Fed.

Fireman Fed?

The FTSE 100 index of leading shares listed in London has now plunged by almost 30% in the last three weeks - a shockingly sharp move, with a severe impact on savers, pensions funds and ISA holders.

Newsflash: Italy’s stock market has closed down 17%, Reuters is reporting - its worst day ever.

The EU-wide Stoxx 600 also had a terrible day, down 11% at the close of trading.

We’re just waiting for London to close now, but it’s going to be awful.

Donald Trump continues to insist that the coronavirus will “go away”, speaking at the White House earlier.

That will further alarm investors who fear the President isn’t taking the crisis seriously enough.

Donald Trump’s decision to ban EU flights from America was “the most expensive speech in history”, says Luca Paolini, chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management.

“Investors are voting with their feet, and I can’t blame them. Markets wanted reassuring, and this was not reassuring.”

And with European markets down 10% today, and Wall Street down over 8%, it’s hard to argue.

Global stock markets have plunged into a bear market today, Reuters reports.

Today’s plunges in London, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney and beyond have dragged the MSCI All-Country World index off over 20% from recent peak, less than a month ago.

As Dennis Dick, proprietary trader at Bright Trading LLC in Las Vegas, puts it:

“It’s not just the fear of the economy going weak, but basically being on the brink of shutting down.

“It’s mass selling across the board (and) we are pricing in a potential to go into another financial crisis.”

Christine Lagarde is trying to repair the damage from her comment about “not being here to close [bond] spreads”.

She’s told CNBC that the European Central Bank’s new package to protect the economy from the coronavirus will help close “dislocations” in the bond market:

ECB chief Christine Lagarde appears to have caused serious panic in the market today.

During her press conference, she was asked about the jump in bond spreads (the gap between yields on risky and less risky assets) -- and appeared to reply that it wasn’t her problem.

That has driven Italian bond yields soaring today.

As I flagged earlier, Lagarde’s message was that government’s need to step up -- but investors are now panicking that the ECB is abandoning Mario Draghi’s pledge to do “whatever it takes”.

Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, says it is a “disaster” - far worse than the ECB’s notorious interest rates hikes in 2011 as the eurozone crisis was kicking off.

It is a major factor behind today’s rout (along with the shock of Donald Trump’s flight ban).

Vistesen writes:

Sometimes you’re just dealt a bad hand. The ECB came into this meeting with volatility and fear dialled to a max; that isn’t easy. That being said, today’s performance will go down as a catastrophic failure by part of the ECB. It is one of the world’s largest central banks, and today markets were crying out for a backstop; they got anything but. Ms. Lagarde spent significant energy on the press conference calling on fiscal policy coordination as the key tool to deal with the fallout from Covid-19. This is self-evident, but it is also extremely tone-deaf at the current juncture. We are not in the business of expressing what we think policymakers should do, but we’ll make an exception on this occasion. Here is the message, the ECB should have sent today.

“We don’t know what fiscal policy will do. We hope they act. In the meantime, we will backstop the financial system and real economy using our position as a central bank with unlimited firepower. “

Instead, Ms. Lagarde repeatedly referred to the need for fiscal policy to step up, even “come first”, eroding with a few sentences the power that her predecessor spent two terms nurturing. She even delivered the astonishing signal that the ECB is “not here to close spreads” with the result that BTP yields are up over 50bp as I type, and this is an economy that has just imposed a lockdown of its economy to combat Covid-19. We are very certain that Ms. Lagarde will have to eat those particular words in due course.

My god, Britain’s FTSE 100 is now down 10% - or 590 points, at 5287, as the sell-off accelerates in late trading.

We’re into the last hour of possibly the worst session on the London stock market in over 30 years.

The FTSE 100 is still showing huge losses, down 9.3% or 547 points at 5330. That would be the third-worse session in the index’s history (going back to to 1984), exceeded only by the crash of 1987 [which took place over 2 days].

Every stock is down, still, with travel firms and financial stocks bottom of the pile.

Back on Wall Street, traders are preparing for the official end of the Bull Market.

The S&P 500 index is down over 7.2%, or 196 points, at 2,544 -- or over 20% off its all-time high earlier this year.

Unless there’s a miracle rebound, it will end in bear market territory (as the Dow did yesterday), ending a stretch dating back to March 2009.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (-28%) and Royal Caribbean Cruises (-25%) are the biggest faller.

The Dow is down another 8%, or over 1,900 points right now -- chemicals firm Dow Inc (-16%), American Express (-12%) and Boeing (-11%) are leading the rout.

The chairman of Tesco has told UK shoppers not to panic about food shortages.

Chairman John Allan told BBC radio that the supermarket’s supply chains were coping, despite signs that shoppers are hoarding toilet roll, pasta, tinned goods and cleaning products.

“There’s plenty of product in the supply chain, there’s plenty of food at Tesco and other supermarkets, and I don’t think anybody needs to panic buy.

“We, and I’m sure our competitors, are re-filling our supply chains as rapidly as ever we can.”

The ECB’s new stimulus measures are broadly positive for banks, so it’s concerning that financial stocks are plunging.

So what’s going on?

Investors are realising that central banks have pretty much extended themselves, using all the tools at their disposal. The problem is that their efforts aren’t being matched by fiscal stimulus by governments across the EU. (A point that ECB’s Christine Lagarde has made ad nauseam, not just today.)

If governments fail to take action - primarily by spending money to support small businesses and individuals as they weather the effects of the coronavirus outbreak - it could result in a wave of defaults, which could wipe out investments and pile banks with bad debts.

Benjie Creelan-Sandford, an equity analyst at Jeffries said:

We read the ECB measures on balance as positive for banks - it provides strong liquidity backstop while reduction in capital requirements offers flexibility.

However, without follow-through from governments on fiscal measures to assist the most challenged parts of the economy, the market is likely to remain fearful about spillover impacts and eventual real losses for banks.

European bank shares are being routed, with ING down 16%, ABN Amro down 15%, Deutsche Bank down 14% and Credit Agricole down 12.7%.

Financial stocks in London are also plunging; life insurance and financial services group Prudential are down 18%, while Legal & General are down 14%.

The market crash is sending investors racing to buy dollars.

This has sent sterling reeling, down 2 cents today to $1.26 - the lowest since October.

Trading has been briefly halted in Brazil too, where stocks plunged another 10%.

It’s another horrific day in the markets, turning into the bleakest sell-off we’ve seen since this crisis began.

The FTSE 100 index is on track for its worst one-day fall since 1987. Worse than Monday’s plunge. Worse than any single day in 2008 after Lehman Brothers failed.

Right now, here’s the situation:

• Dow: down 2,015 points or 8.5% at 21,537
• FTSE 100: down 540 points or 9.1% at 5322

Trading has resumed on Wall Street, and the Dow has promptly plunged by 2,000 points!

That takes the index down to a new one-year low, and shows just how serious this market crash is turning into.

Investors are becoming petrified of a worldwide recession, a coronavirus pandemic, widespread losses that leave companies unable to repay debts.

And Donald Trump’s statement last night is clearly failing to provide reassurance or support.

The top faller on the FTSE 250 is Finablr, which runs Travelex. Shares are down 66% (!) after it warned it might struggle to access cash needed to manage its business as well as negotiate longer term financing.

Restaurant Group, which runs Frankie & Benny’s, Garfunkel’s and Wagamama, are down 23%. Clearly it would suffer from mass self-isolation in the coming weeks...

...as would airport food operator SSP, who are down 19%.

Shares in UK train and bus operators are slumping today, after Go-Ahead warned the coronavirus would hurt profits.

National Express are down 18%, First Group has lost 17%, Stagecoach are off 12%, and Trainline are down 11%. Their revenues would all suffer if fewer people travel into work (as seems imminent).

Go-Ahead itself is down 30%, making it one of the big fallers on the FTSE 250.

Back in the UK, Travel insurers Aviva, InsureandGo, and the Post Office have followed LV= and have withdrawn cover for future coronavirus claims, or stopped selling policies.

On Wednesday night LV= shocked the travel industry when it announced that it would stop selling all travel insurance policies with immediate effect, due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The move appears to have been prompted by the World Health Organisation declaration of a pandemic, on Wednesday afternoon.

By resisting a rate cut today, the ECB has left its benchmark rate at 0%.

It will continue to impose a negative rate of 0.5% on commercial bank deposits left at the ECB (to encourage lending).

And that means that today’s new cheap loans to banks will be priced at -0.75%. In other worse, the ECB will be paying commercial banks to borrow - as long as they actually pass this money onto the real econmy.

European stock markets are plunging deeper into the red following the ECB’s announcement.

The FTSE 100 is now down 420 points, or 7.1%, at 5456 -- which would be its lowest close since 2012.

The German DAX is also sliding:

And....the eurozone bank index has hit a record low.

And also.... the gap between German and Italian government bonds has widened.

That suggests there’s disappointment that the ECB hasn’t gone further today, either with a rate cut or some targeted help for Italy.

The European Central Bank is also relaxing the capital rules on banks, to help them through the crisis.

It says:

The European Central Bank (ECB) today announced a number of measures to ensure that its directly supervised banks can continue to fulfil their role in funding the real economy as the economic effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) become apparent.

“The coronavirus is proving to be a significant shock to our economies. Banks need to be in a position to continue financing households and corporates experiencing temporary difficulties. The supervisory measures agreed today aim to support banks in serving the economy and addressing operational challenges, including the pressure on their staff,” said Andrea Enria, Chair of the ECB Supervisory Board.

It’s just passed noon, and there’s no recovery in the City.

The FTSE 100 is still being hammered, down 5.7% or 341 points at 5534. Every share is still down.

Holiday firms Carnival and TUI are among the worst of a very bad lot, down 14% each.

Thameslink and Southeastern rail operator Go-Ahead is in discussions with the Government on relaxing the rules around timetable changes to cope with the conoravirus pandemic, reports the Press Association

Chief executive David Brown explained he is hoping to be allowed to make changes faster than the current 70-day notice period.

“We want to be able to respond far quicker. Let’s say everyone wants to travel off-peak, we want to be able to make more services available.”

Food delivery group Deliveroo has introduced a “no contact drop-off service” as concern grows about the coronavirus pandemic in the UK.

The app-based food delivery company told customers they will be able to request in the app that their food is left on the doorstep, thus “removing the need for direct contact for both parties.”

A spokesperson says this will keep customers, riders and restaurants safer.

The coronavirus crisis has forced housebuilder Berkeley Group to suspend a £455m payout to shareholders, a mixture of dividends and share buybacks, until there is greater clarity on the economic impact of the pandemic.

It added that there had been “no noticeable impact” on its business so far.

The US travel ban could pile further pressure on oil markets by cutting demand for jet fuel, according to Rystad Energy.

Oil prices fell to just above $33 a barrel this morning after President Trump’s ban on European flights for the next 30 days.

The Norwegian energy analysts said traders received the news “very negatively” for three reasons: first, the cancelled flights could dent demand for oil by around 600,000 barrels; but importantly the move also stokes fear of further economic slowdown, and undermines confidence in the governments’ handling of the fall-out. The oil market was already reeling from a double-blow due to the impact of the coronavirus and plans for an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Rystad has warned that oil prices in the $20s are not far off if the pair battle for dominance by pouring more oil into the market while demand remains weakened by Covid-19.

(Contango is when the price of a commodity today is lower than the forward price)

Ireland has just announced that schools, universities and childcare facilities will close until 29 March, due to Covid-19.

Acting PM Leo Varadkar also said people should limit mass gatherings, work from home where possible, and stagger their break times.

Lloyd’s of London’s temporary, one-day closure will affect thousands of brokers and underwriters.

Just under 50,000 people hold a pass to the building, but don’t all turn up every day, and Friday is a quieter day, John Neal explains.

Bitcoin is tumbling too.

The crypto-currency has slumped from $7,859 last night to around $6,600 as I type, a drop of 15%. Trading is extremely volatile.

It appears to be suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, as people try to get hold of cash (perhaps to cover losses on other investments)

Richard Hunter, Head of Markets at interactive investor, warns that Wall Street is on track for another plunge in three hours time:

The latest pronouncement from the US has exacerbated the sour mood, with a travel ban from Europe dealing another blow to the beleaguered tourism and travel sector. At the same time, the lack of any specific positive measures in the update has given markets an additional and unwelcome hit to factor in to share prices.

Notable by its absence at the moment is any good news. The coronavirus has yet to peak, the oil price is under renewed pressure (although this may prove positive for consumers in the medium term) and only a fraction of the eventual economic cost has been confirmed, even though a growing number of companies are valiantly trying to put a figure on the hit to their earnings. Meanwhile, there is nowhere to hide, with even the traditional haven of gold in negative territory today.

Sellers are pushing against an open door, and the situation could unfortunately get worse before it gets better. Hours ahead of the open, Dow futures have already hit the “limit down” circuit breakers, which suggests that another traumatic day is in the offing.

The number of brave souls trying to snap up shares, hoping we’re near the bottom of the slump, is falling too:

Even interactive investor customers are buying with less conviction. Of those choosing to trade today, 75% are buyers, which compares to the initial falls on Monday this week where the figure was 90%.

Warnings about corporate debt levels are coming home to roost en masse thanks to the coronavirus, flags up economics professor Nouriel Roubini:

British train and bus operator Go-Ahead Group was warned its profits could be hurt by coronavirus (although there’s no real damage yet).

Reuters has the details:

“At this moment in time it is not affecting us, not in any dramatic way because people haven’t changed their travel patterns yet,” CEO David Brown said in an interview on Thursday.

But over the coming months, that could change.

“If people are told not to travel, that would not be good,” he said.

Go-Ahead operates the GTR rail network in London and south east England, as well as London buses and buses in other parts of the UK.

The market slump shows some investors are pricing in a major downturn, a lockdown of US cities, and a “severe credit crunch”, say analysts at Nomura:

The market has been jolted to the point of breaking, and textbook common sense seems to no longer apply. To all appearances, investors are bracing themselves for a worst-case scenario in which the coronavirus spreads in explosive fashion and leads to a global recession, the lockdown of major urban centres across the US, and a severe credit crunch. It is difficult to know what investors are actually thinking, but given the extreme uncertainty over what will happen, investors’ own insecurities could cause a worst-case black swan scenario to actually unfold in self-fulfilling fashion.

They also believe further losses could follow, as investors continue to ditch riskier assets:

Although we are simply hypothesizing here based on our estimates, we are of the impression that to the extent that relatively inexperienced market players have taken this episode as a shock, they are also likely to be quicker to conclude that the flow of bad news has been depleted. Conversely, investors who have already lived through such episodes as Black Monday and the collapse of Lehman Brothers may be less shocked by the present episode, but by the same token, they may be more inclined towards caution over what comes next. There is no data available on the age distribution of market participants. However, we suspect that the market’s departure from what has passed for common sense may be encouraging more experienced investors to brace for more risk-off movements, thereby exacerbating the market plunge.

Stock markets are capitulating in the face of the coronavirus’s threat to the global economy (and Trump’s response), says Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“Today’s early morning session saw a 6.3% decline in the FTSE 100 to 5,502 which put the index back to levels not seen since July 2012.

Donald Trump’s restrictions on travel from many parts of Europe to the US have spooked the market, particularly because his initial comments implied they would also block cargo, which he has since retracted.

The travel ban will raise expectations that the US will enter recession. After all, Europe is a key source of tourists and business travel to North America and so there will be a large drop in spending which the region would normally enjoy.

Today’s warnings from WH Smith and Cineworld show that the real economy is now suffering, he adds:

“For anyone in London, it does feel like some of the commuter trains are less busy, so too gyms and swimming pools. Daily activity is being affected by more people working or staying at home. One can only assume this trend is emerging across the rest of the country.”

There’s a lot of grim charts out there today, but this one might be the worst. It shows how the Stoxx 50 index of Europe’s largest companies is half its level before the dot-com crash:

The speed and scale of the destruction of shareholder value in the last few weeks is shocking.

The 25% wiped off the FTSE 100 since 21 February is equal to roughly £470bn - a huge debt in pension pots, ISAs and tracker funds.

Hopes that the sell-off might abate have consistently been crushed as Covid-19 has continued to spread -- making a global recession more and more likely.

Worryingly, the cost of insuring airline’s debt against default is rising this morning too.

The CBOE VIX index, which tracks volatility in the markets, have surged to its highest level since 2008, Reuters reports.

That shows just how scared investors are about situation today.

The EU-wide Stoxx 600 has plunged by 6.7% this morning, with markets an absolute sea of red.

The technology sector is down 8%, consumer cyclicals have lost 7%, industrial groups are down 6.9% and banks have lost another 6.6%.

This takes the Stoxx 600’s losses for 2020 to 25%.

Cineworld isn’t the only company warning about the impact of coronavirus this morning.

The upmarket estate agents Savills has flagged that the coronavirus pandemic has caused a big drop in deals in China and elsewhere in Asia – and this could also happen in other countries as the virus spreads.

Its chairman, Nicholas Ferguson, said:

“In Asia, particularly China, it is clear that COVID-19 is having a significant impact on transactional activity and may have a similar effect elsewhere, depending to an extent on the length and severity of each outbreak.

Our focus is on the welfare of our staff and clients and we have instituted protective measures in locations potentially affected by this virus.”

Cineworld, the world’s second-largest movie chain, has warned if the spread of the coronavirus forced the closure of all its cinemas for two to three months it would face breaching its financial covenants with lenders.

The company, which said cinema admissions in January and February were up year-on-year and are currently at a “good level”, is planning cost cuts and delaying capital expenditure as virus measures.

The company has no cinemas in China, where movie theatres have been closed since the beginning of February, with 75% of its business in North America. About 10% is derived from the U.K. & Ireland and the remainder is from operations in the rest of the world, mostly Eastern Europe.

The company said that aside from the new James Bond film, No Time To Die, which has been postponed from April to November, Hollywood studios “remain committed” to their movie release schedules this year.

If this rout continues, the FTSE 100 index will soon hits its lowest level since 2012, when the eurozone debt crisis was raging.

European stock markets are also taking a bath:

The FTSE 100 has slumped to its lowest level since February 2016.

Airline stocks are, predictably, being hit particularly hard. British Airways parent company, IAG, has lost 10.5%. EasyJet has slumped by 11.3%, while holiday maker TUI is off 8.7%

Mining giant Anglo American has fallen 10.5%, reflecting the growing fears of a painful global recession.

Neil Wilson of Markets.com also believes Donald Trump has made a bad situation much worse:

The World Health Organisation has finally declared the outbreak a pandemic – this is only going to force governments to feel they need to take more draconian measures, ramping up the uncertainty and the near-term economic shock. Volatility is not going anywhere, and we again see global stock markets tumbling on Thursday.

So much for Trump’s stimulus. Instead of his late-night presidential address calming things, it only fanned the flames raging in markets. The president has gone from calling it a Democrat hoax to banning all travel from Europe in just 12 days.

A 30-day European travel ban didn’t allay market fears that this virus is spreading very fast and will wreak economic havoc. Indeed, it actually makes the economic harm greater, at least in the short term

Donald Trump’s measures are likely to help push the world into recession, fears Mohamed El-Erian, chief economist of insurer Allianz.

El-Erian warned:

“The advanced economies are now likely to feel the full force of economic sudden stops that destroy both supply and demand at the same time,” he said. “The collapse in economic activity risks being amplified by the economics of fear, uncertainty and adverse economic-financial feedback loops.

“I believe there is a high probability of global recession.”