Asian shares faced another leg lower on Wednesday as the coronavirus sharply slows global growth, leading a gauge of world stocks to post its biggest quarterly decline in more than a decade and oil prices to trade near lows last seen in 2002.
Shares on Wall Street tumbled on Tuesday, with the Dow registering its biggest quarterly fall since 1987 and the S&P 500 its steepest quarterly drop since a decade ago on growing evidence of the massive downturn the pandemic will incur.
E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 traded 1% lower in after-hours trade, while Asian futures suggested the rout would continue.
FTSE China A50 futures in Singapore were down 0.85% and Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.86% in early trade.
The first-quarter decline was the biggest on record for the S&P 500 as consumers hunkered down at home, leading businesses to announce massive staff furloughs and to shut temporarily. US economic activity is likely to be “very bad” and the unemployment rate could rise above 10% because of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester told CNBC.
The United States marked 700 deaths in a single day from COVID-19 for the first time on Tuesday, lifting total US fatalities from the disease to more than 3,700. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.35% in early trade. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.48% following modest gains in Europe. The index fell nearly 22% for the quarter.
Bucking the broader decline, Australian shares opened higher as a slowdown in new coronavirus cases brightened investor sentiment while rising iron ore prices gave miners a lift.