MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 2.29% lower, while emerging market stocks lost 2.20%. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.01% while MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe but also cut losses late in the session to shed 0.33%. More than half of the world index is weighted to U.S. stocks. Shares in London fell 1.36%, extending losses as the pound climbed against the dollar after the Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged.
NEW YORK: Global equity markets tumbled on Thursday as the death toll from China's coronavirus outbreak hit 170, pummelling oil prices and inverting a closely watched bond indicator as investors worried about the world's second-largest economy.
Gold gained along with the safe-haven Japanese yen and Swiss franc, as the number of people infected by the virus in a fast-spreading health crisis surpassed 8,100 people globally, more than the total from the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.
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