Mar 14, 2020 (Japan Today) - Tokyo stocks plummeted Friday on escalating fears about the coronavirus outbreak, with the Nikkei index finishing at its lowest level in over three years after briefly posting the biggest point fall in nearly three decades as global markets were routed.
The index lost over 10 percent or 1,869.03 points at one point, the largest intraday point drop since April 1990 when Japan saw emerging signs of the bursting of the asset-inflated bubble economy.
But a sharp rebound in U.S. stock futures eased worries about the market outlook moderately, helping lift the U.S. dollar against the yen to the mid-105 yen zone and the Nikkei index to trim part of earlier losses, brokers said.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended down 1,128.58 points, or 6.08 percent, from Thursday at 17,431.05, its lowest close since Nov 11, 2016. The index lost 3,318.7 points for the five days through Friday, its largest-ever weekly fall.
The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange finished 66.18 points, or 4.98 percent, lower at 1,261.70.
"Panic started from the open and accelerated," said Akira Tanoue, a senior strategist in the investment research department at Nomura Securities Co.
Many stocks remained untraded for the first 10 minutes after opening due to the massive number of sell orders.
The morning sell-off in the Tokyo stock market followed another plunge on Wall Street overnight, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting its biggest percentage fall since the 1987 Black Monday crash as the U.S. travel ban for Europe caused concerns over the impact of the virus on global businesses, brokers said.
In Europe, stocks in Britain and Germany also dropped 10 percent or more.
