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* WPP set for worst day in over 27 years after bleak
forecast
* Standard Chartered, AB InBev latest victims of virus
damage
* STOXX 600 on course for worst week since May 2011
(Updates prices, adds comments)
By Thyagaraju Adinarayan and Sruthi Shankar
LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - European stocks slumped 4% on
Thursday, entering correction territory as a jump in coronavirus
cases outside China deepened fears of a looming pandemic that
could dent global growth.
Investors typically consider a correction in a security or
index to be a drop of 10% or more from its recent peak.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index has fallen more
than 10% over the past week, a sudden plunge from its record
high on Feb. 19.
"From the unshakeable optimism seen at the beginning of the
year, investors have done a complete U-turn switching from
excessive optimism to outright pessimism in less than a week,"
Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said.
In Thursday's sell-off, more than 97% of the pan-European
STOXX 600 index's constituents were trading in the red
with travel stocks bearing the brunt. British Airways-owner IAG
, easyJet and Air France fell 10%-11%.
Heightening the concerns were profit warnings from blue-chip
companies. Standard Chartered tumbled 4.5% after the
bank said a key earnings target would take longer to meet as the
epidemic adds to headwinds in China and Hong Kong.
The world's largest beer maker, Anheuser-Busch InBev
, plunged 10.4% after it forecast muted growth in 2020
due in part to the outbreak.
European stocks were poised to record their worst single-day
performance since the Brexit referendum in 2016 and their sixth
day of declines in the past seven.
Europe's media index took a knock as advertising
major WPP tumbled 16%, on track for its worst day since
August 1992, after saying it would target flat organic growth
and profit margins in 2020. Shares in rival Publicis Groupe SA
fell 6.6%
Banking stocks, miners and retail stocks
all dropped about 4% to 5%. Italian shares, which
entered correction territory on Wednesday, fell as the
country reported another 100 coronavirus cases nationwide,
taking the total to more than 400.
Governments ramped up measures to battle a looming global
pandemic as the number of infections outside China, the source
of the outbreak, for the first time surpassed those appearing
inside the country.
Meanwhile, euro zone money markets have started to fully
price in a December European Central Bank interest rate cut as
expectations for more stimulus ramp up.
"People are thinking that rate cuts, now already at low
levels, might stimulate the economy," said Edward Park, deputy
chief investment officer at London-based firm Brooks Macdonald.
"But what we really need is supportive measures that can be
executed now, and that will be in the form of fiscal policy."
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Danilo Masoni in
Milan; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Giles Elgood)
