The Ibex plummets 2,9% and sinks 12% in its worst week since 2010

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed this Friday that it has increased the risk assessment of the coronavirus, which has spread to 49 countries in a matter of weeks, to "very high" worldwide.

Outside of China, there are 4,351 cases in 48 countries, including 67 deaths as of Friday morning, Tedros has confirmed. WHO is seeing "Covid-19 linked epidemics in several countries, but most cases can still be traced to known contacts or case groups."

"We still don't see evidence that the virus is spreading freely," added the WHO director general. However, he added that the virus could become a pandemic, although he has assured that “our greatest enemy at this time it is not the virus itself. It is the fear and rumors."

In Spain, those affected rise to 27 and the Ministry of Health is contemplating more restrictive measures such as controlling crowds if the community transmission is out of control or extended to large groups.

On the business level, the last blows of the results season continue this Friday. Merlin Properties has reported a net profit of 563 million euros, 34% less than the previous year.

Among the companies that publish results today we highlight MásMóvil, Acciona (up 3.3% after earning more in 2019), Acerinox, Amadeus, Quabit, and with special mention to IAG. The air conglomerate has collapsed 8.8% at the end of Thursday and this Friday another 8.6% sinks after not even giving forecasts for the viral outbreak.

Back to the world stock market situation, that of New York is sinking more than 10% in the week and analysts comment that it has entered corrective mode.

The expansion of the coronavirus to a multitude of countries anticipates that its economic impact will be greater than initially estimated, which is causing investors to flee from equity to safer assets such as bonds and gold.

As for Asian parquets, the breakdown is also capitalized and after several days in red, the indexes of Japan, such as the Nikkei (-3.67%) and Topix have fallen another 4% this morning. The fall of 0.4% in Japanese retail sales in January has not helped general pessimism, however the figure has been better than the forecast of a 1.1% drop, according to Reuters.

In mainland China, the stock exchanges have also noticed the impact of investors' fear of the Shenzhen component yielding 4.4%, the same as the Shenzhen compound. The Shanghai compound (-3.70) fell close to 4%, while the Hong Kong Hang Seng has done so by 2.9%. The rest of regional parks have fell over 3%.