Central Banks To Rescue Markets on Virus Nerves

The Bank of England along with other central banks has promised to monitor developments and are assessing any potential impacts the coronavirus has on financial markets.

The Bank is working with HM Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and international partners to protect financial and monetary stability.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) also said they will continue to monitor developments and endeavour to stabilise markets and offer enough liquidity via market operations and asset purchases.

The stock markets last week suffered their worst week since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and as the coronavirus spreads investors are hoping that central banks all other the world support the financial markets.

London’s FTSE 100 index early trading was to almost 3% then dropped back standing at just more than 1% higher.

Asian markets bounced back with China’s Shanghai Composite index up 3.2% and Japans benchmark index, the Nikkei 225 ending 1% higher.

The coronavirus outbreak has wiped out more than £5 trillion global stocks last week.

Comment

We expect much of the same for markets this week and we see the coronaviris position gettimg much worse before it gets better.  Therefore, we cannot see central banks being able to protect a position if 20% of the country is unable to work, which is how bad we think it could get.