China’s coronavirus outbreak continues to spread fear through world markets, with oil prices falling to their lowest point in three months and the FTSE (losing more than 2% in early Monday trading.
Brent crude fell by $ 1. a barrel, or 2.2%, to $ . (£
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al Saud, energy minister in one of the world’s major oil producing countries, Saudi Arabia, said members of OPEC (the organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) could respond to steady the oil market if necessary.
He said markets were being “primarily driven by psychological factors and extremely negative expectations adopted by some market participants despite [the virus’s] very limited impact on global oil demand”
Mihir Kapadia, chief executive at Sun Global Investments, said the virus situation “could keep oil prices fragile until the coronavirus shows signs of slowing down”.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the FTSE 132 had fallen almost 2.3% by . (am with France’s CAC) and Germany’s DAX both down almost 2%.
Markets.com analyst Neil Wilson said: “If politics is hard to grasp for most buysiders then virology is impossible – that is enough reason to see de-risking to happen; although I would still anticipate dips to be bought. “
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Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Spotify , Spreaker It comes as China tightens travel restrictions in an effort to contain the virus, which has now killed (people and infected more than 2, 
.
China’s Lunar New Year is usually a very busy time for travel, entertaining and gift-giving but tens of millions of people are in cities that are under lockdown.
Analysts at S&P Global estimate that if spending on holiday-related services in China falls % over the holiday period, the country growth will slow 1.2 percentage points.
Other countries are also fearful – early on Monday Russian tour operators said they had stopped selling tours to China, while Malaysia imposed a temporary ban on visitors from Wuhan and Hubei.
Shares in travel-related sectors such as airlines and hotel groups have been suffering since the virus outbreak was confirmed.
Among the biggest losers were airlines including British Airways owner IAG, which was down 5.9% , and hotel groups, with InterContinental losing 4.5%.
Luxury brands were also hit hard, as they rely heavily on Chinese consumers. Burberry was down 4.7% and Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) was down 3.7%.
Stephen Innes of AxiCorp said that, apart from the direct impact on tourism and travel, “any economic shock to China’s colossal industrial and consumption engines will spread increasing to other countries through the increased trade and financial linkages associated with globalization” ” .
While most Asian markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, Japan’s Nikkei was down 2%, on track for its biggest one-day fall in three weeks. India’s Sensex was down 0.7%, Thailand’s benchmark fell 2.2% and Indonesia’s was 0.8% lower.
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