After a day of carnage in global markets, the UK’s Sky News asked if coronavirus will spark a global recession:
The FTSE 100 leading index of shares in London has closed the day down 7.7% – its biggest single-day fall since the 2008 financial crisis.
The fall, which wiped £125bn off the value of its constituent companies, was the fifth-biggest in history and came in a difficult day for markets around the world.
Sky News YouTube Channel
This was the single worst day in FTSE 100 since 2008. In this Sky News report, they graphed all the worst days in FTSE 100 history, which showed today (March 9th 2020) was the 5th worst day of the top 100 shares index since the invention.
This big dip was driven by collapses in the price of oil based shares, which lost 20% of their value, in just one day.
The report also showed how the bond market has fallen to it’s lowest level in “the history of capitalism” – going right back to the early 1700s – which means companies are willing to lend government money at “incredibly low interest rates.”
The economy has, in other words, never looked exactly like this.
Government borrowing is very cheap; the stock market is looking very volatile, ahead of some extremely uncertain times. Huge habit changes may be enforced by coronavirus, including more people working from home, staying at home and, also, ordering for home deliveries.
The only company which made gains in the FTSE 100, on Monday 9th March, was Tesco, the supermarket.
