Panic mode on: Dow plunges 1,000+ points on mounting fears over coronavirus spreading

US markets continue to plunge on reports of increasing numbers of cases of the сoronavirus being identified outside China.

The Dow Jones dropped by more than 1,000 points (3.7 percent) on Monday, while the S&P 500 dropped 3.5 percent and the Nasdaq index lost as much as four percent.

Investors are increasingly worried about the economic impact of the сoronavirus outbreak, as more countries took measures to curb its spread over the weekend.

South Korea reported 161 new cases of the infection on Monday, while Italy and Iran also said they had seen a jump in the number of cases.

Travel stocks, along with technology stocks, were trading lower on Monday, with Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet taking a $250 billion loss cumulatively as part of the broader plunge. Airline stocks, meanwhile, also saw a significant drop, with both Delta and American down seven percent.

Drugmakers – such as Inovio Pharmaceuticals and Novavax, which both jumped by as much as 18 percent in pre-market trading – saw big gains as Big Pharma firms attempt to develop vaccines for the virus.

European markets were also feeling the effect, with Britain's FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX both falling by more than 3.5 percent.

By percentage, the precipitous drop was the largest seen for the S&P 500 since October 2018, and the biggest since February 2018 for the Dow, with both indices giving up all of the gains made so far in 2020, as fears of the fast-moving coronavirus outbreak continue to wreak havoc on global markets.

Shortly after the US stock market reported its biggest drop in a while, US President Donald Trump, apparently not impressed with the dive, tweeted that the markets were “starting to look very good.”  

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