Coronavirus fuels recession fears: Worst week for global markets since 2008

Wall Street shares led the rout as the S&P 500 fell 4.42 per cent, its largest percentage drop since August 2011

Global share prices headed for the worst week since the darkest days of the world financial crisis in 2008 as investors braced for the coronavirus to become a pandemic and rapidly spread around the world.

Hopes that the epidemic that started in China would be over in a few months and economic activity would return to normal have been shattered, as new infections reported around the world now surpass those in China.

"The coronavirus now looks like a pandemic. Markets can cope even if there is big risk as long as we can see the end of the tunnel," said