The Irish Examiner View: Coronavirus moves up a level of intensity

Any complacency or any lingering ambiguity around coronavirus was swept away yesterday by those most disinterested but informed arbiters — the world’s stock markets. Though the figures may have changed as the day progressed, New York stocks fell by 7% on opening, provoking a brief suspension of trading. London endured an even greater loss when the Ftse 100 plunged by over 8.5% and was, at one point, heading for its worst one-day fall since 2008. Fears of global recession, exacerbated by coronavirus if not provoked by it, pushed nearly every London stock into the red. Oil giants suffered the brunt with BP down 27% and Royal Dutch Shell losing 20%. The oil-price war launched by Saudi Arabia and Russia at the weekend and the epidemic were blamed.

Dublin was not immune. The Iseq fell by as much as 6.2%, bringing its year-to-date fall to 19.6%. One analysis suggests private pension savers have lost as much as 10%, another sharp fall irrelevant to public-sector pensions. There is, unfortunately, far more to this rolling story than economics.