01:49 PM
Saturday 29 February 2020
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Cairo – Agencies:
The Corona virus continued to hit the global markets for goods, currencies and stocks, while continuing to dominate the state of fear and panic on investors around the world from the outbreak of the virus in other regions of the world, especially with the spread of new countries and fears that it would lead to a global slowdown.
The virus continued to circulate on Friday, with cases being announced for the first time in six countries across three continents, battering markets and prompting the World Health Organization to increase the level of risk warning to “very high”.
This increased the number of countries that recorded injuries other than China, the source of the outbreaks of injuries, to more than 55 countries, as the number of injuries reached more than 85 thousand injuries, and the number of deaths to more than 2900 people.
Although the spread of the virus contributed to a significant rise in global gold prices during the last days, the control of the panic situation on investors yesterday led to their tendency to liquidate various assets, including gold, because the ounce price fell by about $ 59.3, or 3.61%, to $ 1585.69 at the end of the session, registering a greater Weekly decline since November 2016.
In other precious metals, palladium fell 10.8% to $ 2538.21 an ounce, in its worst performance since the financial crisis in 2008, and after declining 12.7% earlier Friday. The metal has lost about $ 390 since the peak of $ 2875.50 recorded last Thursday.
And platinum lost 5.5% to record 849.63 dollars, and faces its worst weekly decline since 2008. Silver fell 7.2% to 16.43 dollars an ounce, and is in the process of its worst week since 2011, according to Reuters.
Oil prices tumbled for the sixth consecutive session on Friday to record their lowest levels in more than a year, with futures suffering their biggest losses in one week since 2016, with fears of energy demand being affected by the global economic slowdown due to the Corona virus, according to the agency.
The most active Brent futures contracts for next May delivery fell $ 2.06, or 4%, to settle the settlement price at $ 49.67 a barrel, the lowest level since July 2017.
And Brent contracts lost next April delivery $ 1.66, or 3.2%, to close at $ 50.52 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude fell $ 2.33, or 5%, to $ 44.76 when the settlement. This is the lowest close for Brent and West Texas since December 2018.
The US dollar fell to a 7-week low against the Japanese yen on Friday, after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell hinted that the central bank may cut interest rates in the face of the emerging Corona virus, according to Reuters.
According to the agency, Powell said on Friday that the central bank “will act, if necessary,” to support the economy in the face of the risks posed by the virus, but added that the economy is still in a strong position.
And while Powell believes that the US economy is still strong, US stocks continued to decline as the S&P 500 index fell for the seventh consecutive session on Friday, achieving its biggest weekly loss since the global financial crisis in 2008 due to fears of an economic recession due to corona.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 356.88 points, or 1.39% to 25409.76 points, and the S&P lost 24.7 points or 0.83% to 2,954.06 points, while the Nasdaq Composite Index increased 0.89 points or 0.01% to 8,567.37 points.
European stocks were also not aware of the impact of the virus, as the European Stoxx 600 index fell 3.54% on Friday, marking the largest weekly decline since the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, by 12.25%.
The index entered correction levels last Thursday, as it fell 10% from its recent high, alongside US and Asian markets, according to Reuters.
Japanese stocks tumbled in heavy volume on Friday to their lowest level in nearly six months, and the benchmark Nikkei index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell 3.7% to 21142.96 points, the lowest closing level since the fifth of last September.
The broader Japanese Topix index also fell 3.7% yesterday to 1510.87 points, the lowest level since early September, in very active transactions, while the volume of transactions reached the highest level since May 2018 at 4.13 billion shares, partly due to a quarterly rebalancing of the MSC index Ay, according to Reuters.
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