Indian indices fell more than two percent in opening trading on Friday. The Nifty index slipped below 11,300 while Sensex was down around 1,100 points amid worries over the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus.
This comes shortly after US stocks closed the day more than 1,100 points in the red with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 1,190.95 points, and the S&P 500 wrapping up the day with a 137.63-point loss. The Nasdaq Composite plunged by 414.30 points.
Japanese markets tumbled by four percent while Chinese and South Korean markets also slipped due to growing cases of coronavirus as investors feared that the world may enter into recession like 2008.
"The global market is quite in panic with the spread of the coronavirus front. Till the market doesn’t see any relief from the virus, we may see sideways to negative movement going forward", Jay Anand Thakkar, CMT Assistant Vice President-Equity Research, Anand Rathi said on Friday.
On Friday, Nigeria confirmed the first case of the coronavirus on the African continent. As per the Health Ministry, the case involves an Italian citizen who works in Nigeria and just returned from Milan, Italy on the 25th of February.
At present, more than 82,500 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed, with over 78,000 reported in mainland China but the major concern for investors is the speed at which the disease is spreading outside China.