Coronavirus fears led to a historic drop in US stocks, shut borders and disrupted daily life around the world, as governments took increasingly drastic measures to try to reduce the severity of the global outbreak.
Financial markets had their worst day in 30 years despite emergency action by global central banks to try to prevent a recession, with US stock markets falling 12% to 13%, wiping out trillions of dollars in market value.
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Global stock markets and US futures fell Monday after central bank moves to shore up economic growth failed to dispel investor's fears over anti-virus controls that are shutting down global business and travel.
There were no glimmers of optimism: Paris tumbled 9% shortly after the open, London sank 7% and Frankfurt gave up 7.5%. In Asian trading, Sydney's benchmark plunged 9.7%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 3.4% and India shed 5.9%.
Tokyo closed 2.5% lower after Japan's central bank expanded asset purchases to inject money into the economy and promised no-interest loans to help companies cope with the crisis. Chinese shares fell after Beijing reported consumer spending and factory output were even worse than expected.
On Wall Street, futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index and Dow Jones Industrial Average were off nearly 5% following Sunday's emergency rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed cut its key rate by a full percentage point – to a range between zero and 0.25%. The central bank said it would stay there until it feels confident the economy can survive a near-shutdown of activity in the United States.
"Despite whipping out the big guns," the Fed's action is "falling short of being the decisive backstop for markets," said Vishnu Varathan of Mizuho Bank in a report. "Markets might have perceived the Fed's response as panic, feeding into its own fears."
The Fed action came as Western governments expanded travel curbs and closed more public facilities, raising the cost of efforts to contain the outbreak that has infected nearly 170,000 people worldwide. China, where the coronavirus emerged in December, accounts for about half of those, but a dozen other countries have more than 1,000 cases each.
London's benchmark FTSE 100 index lost 6.9% to 4,995.46. Frankfurt's DAX shed 7.6% to 8,532.05. The CAC 40 in France sank 8.8% to 3,755.99.
The S&P 500 future was down 4.8% and the Dow's was off 4.6%.
The S&P 500 future fell 5% on Sunday night following the Fed's announcement, triggering a temporary trading halt.
The Fed said it also will buy at least $500 billion of Treasury securities and $200 billion of mortgage-backed securities. This amounts to an effort to ease market disruptions that have made it harder for banks and large investors to sell Treasuries and to keep longer-term rates borrowing rates down.
That followed a dizzying week in which the Dow twice fell by more than 2,000 points and also record its biggest point gain ever – 1,985 points on Friday. The bull market that began in 2009 in the depths of the financial crisis came to an end.
In Sydney, the S&P-ASX 200 fell to 5,002.00. Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled to 23,063.57. In India, the Sensex retreated 6.6% to 31,812.12.
The Shanghai Composite Index declined 3.4% to 2,789.25 after the government reported retail sales fell 20.5% from a year ago in January and February after shopping malls and other businesses were closed. Factory output declined by a record 13.5% after the Lunar New Year holiday was extended to keep manufacturing workers at home.
The figures were even bleaker than economists expected. Some cut their forecasts for the world's second-largest economy. ING said this year's growth might fall as low as 3.6%, the weakest since at least the 1970s.
The Bank of Japan's decision to expand purchases of stocks, corporate bonds and other assets viewed as riskier than Japanese government bonds fell flat.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo sank to 17,002.04 while Seoul's Kospi lost 3.2% to 1,714.86.
A White House adviser said the United States could pump $800 billion or more into the economy to minimize economic damage.
EU finance ministers were planning a coordinated economic response to the virus, which the European Commission says could push the European Union into recession.
