International Airlines Share News (IAG)

(Sharecast News) - Stocks in Europe were getting hammered again at the end of the week as investors rushed into the relative safety of government bonds, alongside big moves in the euro and crude oil futures.
Financial markets were taking their cue from a downdraft on Wall Street the day before, including another big fall in US bond yields.

Commenting on the fallout from the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, analysts at BofA Securities told clients to expect the onset of a global recession in March, with the key to whether its lasts months not weeks being the American consumer, adding that the easiest path to a recession remained a sharp fall in the prices of financial assets.

With policymakers starting to panic and given their new forecasts for earnings per share suggested that the 2,800-3,040 point range in the S&P 500 was a "good entry point", BofA added.

As of 1211 GMT, the pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 3.45% at 367.64, alongside a 3.48% fall on the German Dax to 11,529.35 and a retreat of 3.61% to 5,167.96 for France's Cac-40.

Euro/dollar was again vaulting higher, climbing 0.85% to 1.1324, while Brent crude oil was skidding 4% lower to $48.11 a barrel after Russia rejected a call from OPEC for further oil output curbs.

At the sector level, Travel&Leisure and Oil&Gas were the weakest areas of the market, with their respective gauges on the Stoxx 600 falling 4.98% and 4.0%, alongside a 3.82% drop in the sub-index for Banks.

Norwegian Air Shuttle was plummeting 26% amid fears over the toll that the coronavirus would have on its balance sheet.

In parallel, SAS AB announced that it would cut routes and capacity as demand falls but said that the virus's impact on February traffic was "limited".

FinnAir on the other repeorted a 1.7% drop in revenue passenger kilometres in February that sent its shares 4% lower.

Against that backdrop, the likes of easyjet and IAG were each falling 5%.

Related to all of the above, Airbus stock was down 6% after the jetmaker reported that it had received zero new orders for jets in February, although there had been no cancellations.

Prysmian was a top faller on the Stoxx 600 after the Italian maker of optical cables and connectivity systems for the telecommunications sector.

Italian toll-road operator Atlantia was right behind.

German chipmaker Infineon was down 5% in the wake of reports that US officials had recommended against allowing its $10bn deal to acquire Cypress Semicondutoc

On the economic front, Greece's national statistics office reported that the counrty's gross domestic product shrank at a quarter-on-quarter pace of 1.0% over the first three months of 2020.

In Germany meanwhile, the government reported a 5.5% month-on-month jump in factory orders for January (consensus: 1.5%), helped by a bounce back in orders for large capital goods including aerospace and bulk machinery and equipment.

"This is a ridiculous strong headline, though it's difficult to put too much weight on it. It reflects conditions before the Covid-19 outbreak [...] Very strong; it won't last, but every little helps at this point," says Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

ISTAT meanwhile reported that Italian retail sales in January were flat month-on-month.