(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London opened in the negative territory on Friday as coronavirus continues taking lives, with first fatalities announced in the UK and Switzerland.
A patient with underlying health conditions became the first person in the UK to die after testing positive for coronavirus as the number of diagnosed cases hit three figures.
The Royal Berkshire NHS Trust said the older patient, reported to be a woman in her 70s, had been "in and out of hospital" for other reasons but was admitted on Wednesday evening to hospital in Reading and tested positive.
It came during a day of several key developments, with the number of UK cases of Covid-19 surging to 116 – more than double the total 48 hours earlier – and Downing Street warning it was "highly likely" the virus would spread "in a significant way".
The FTSE 100 index was down 89.50 points, or 1.3%, at 6,615.93 on Friday. Since the week began, the blue-chip index is down 0.4%.
The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 424.89 points, or 2.2%, at 18,898.24, and the AIM All-Share index was down 1.4% at 863.89.
The Cboe UK 100 index was 1.5% lower at 11,201.45. The Cboe 250 was down 2.0% at 16,908.10, and the Cboe Small Companies down 0.1% at 11,545.04.
In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 1.7%, while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was off 1.8%.
The pound was quoted at USD1.2970 early Friday, firm from USD1.2922 at the London equities close Thursday. The euro was at USD1.1238 early Friday, up from USD1.1185 late Thursday.
Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JPY105.86 early Friday in London, down from JPY106.73 late Thursday.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo ended the day 2.7% lower, the Shanghai Composite in China closed down 1.2%. The Hang Seng index closed down 2.3%.
"Equity markets were marked by wild upside and downside swings this week, moving in a completely random pattern and furiously rejecting all support from governments and central banks," said Swissquote Bank Senior Analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya.
"At this point no one can really explain why the markets behave the way they do, and what may be next. The only thing we can say is this high volatility is bad, whether it is positive or negative," added Ozkardeskaya.
High street sales in the UK have taken a battering from storms and coronavirus fears over the past month, according to new figures Friday. Like-for-like store sales slipped 0.9% in February, according to BDO's latest High Street Sales Tracker.
The survey blamed storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge – as well as global fears over the coronavirus outbreak – for the decline, after sales had picked up in previous months.
Sophie Michael, head of retail and wholesale at BDO, said: "Bad weather and concerning headlines contributed to an already difficult trading environment in February."
On the LSE, Hammerson was among the worst performers in the FTSE 250 index, down 7.0% in early trade. Goldman Sachs cut the property development and investment company to Neutral from Buy
Cineworld was in the red as well, down 5.7%, despite reporting that it has not seen any "material impact" so far on theatre admissions from the spread of coronavirus.
Following an increase in admissions in the first two months of the year, against the same period in the previous year, Cineworld said it continues to see "good" levels of admissions in all of its territories, despite the reported spread of COVID-19.
For 2019, the cinema chain operator said it anticipates reporting revenue of USD4.37 billion, up 6.1% from USD4.12 billion recorded in 2018. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation is penned at USD1.03 billion, up 12% from USD925.4 million. Net debt, excluding lease liabilities, is predicted at USD3.48 billion versus USD3.73 billion.
Although the latest James Bond movie release has been delayed to November due to closure of cinemas in Asian markets, movie studios have advised Cineworld that they currently remain committed to their release schedule for the coming months and remainder of 2020.
On Wednesday, MGM and Universal Studios announced that the release of the 25th instalment of the James Bond franchise would be pushed back seven months due to coronavirus. 'No Time to Die' was set to be released at the end of April, but will now debut in November.
Victrex was down 5.4% after Barclays cut the polymer supplier to Underweight from Equal Weight.
Elsewhere, easyHotel surged 19% to 83 pence after announcing a conditional fundraising of GBP11 million by way of subscription. The budget hotel chain said it will issue 11.6 million shares at a price of 95.0p each, representing a 36% discount to the closing mid-market price on Thursday.
Proceeds of the subscription will be primarily utilised to fund easyHotel's owned hotel roll-out strategy, it said.
"The group continues to make good progress towards securing sites in its target destinations and we look forward to announcing further developments in due course," said Interim Chief Executive Scott Christie.
In economic news, German factory orders improved substantially in January following December's slump, Destatis reported on Friday.
Factory orders were 5.5% higher in January on the month before, largely due to orders in the aerospace and machinery and equipment industries. This followed a 2.1% slump in December.
Annually, orders were down 1.4%, though this marked a significant improvement on the 8.9% annual tumble recorded for December.
Consensus, according to FXStreet, had pencilled in just a 1.4% month-on-month rise and a 7.6% annual decline.
The economic events calendar on Friday has the US jobs report for February at 1330 GMT.
In commodities, gold was quoted at USD1,672.29 an ounce early Friday, higher than USD1,658.87 late Thursday. Brent oil was at USD49.10 a barrel, down from USD50.91.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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Victrex (VCT)
Hammerson (HMSO)