Any lingering hopes that a full-blown financial crisis arising from the coronavirus pandemic might be avoided are fading fast. Even before yesterday’s extraordinary market moves, the FTSE 100 had already fallen 15 per cent from its January peak as investors digested the economic damage from Chinese factory closures, disrupted supply chains and the impact of a collapse in worldwide travel. Yesterday the FTSE plunged a further 8 per cent, the biggest one day fall since 2008 and gilt yields hit historic lows as Italy’s extraordinary efforts to halt the spread of the virus brought home the scale of the crisis. It came after oil prices had fallen 20 per cent, leaving them at half their level of a year ago, raising doubt about the

Source: The Times March 10, 2020 00:00 UTC