Major European Stock Markets Plunge, UK Down 6.6%·Germany Down 7.5% (Update)

[Asia Economy Reporter Changhwan Lee] European major stock markets are plunging again amid concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

As of 8:24 PM Korean time on the 16th, the UK FTSE 100 index is trading at 5012.11, down 6.6% from the previous trading day.

At the same time, Germany's DAX index is down 7.49% at 8540.75, and France's CAC index is trading at 3759.31, down 8.72%.

Although central banks of major countries, including the United States, have taken measures to boost the stock market by sharply lowering benchmark interest rates, it was insufficient to prevent the market decline.

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) held an unscheduled Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting last weekend and surprised the market by cutting the benchmark interest rate to near zero.

In its statement, the Fed said, "The coronavirus has damaged communities and harmed economic activities in many countries including the United States," adding, "Global financial conditions have been severely affected."

Additionally, six central banks including the Fed, European Central Bank (ECB), Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and Swiss National Bank agreed to improve dollar liquidity worldwide through existing dollar swap agreements.

To this end, they decided to lower the swap rate by 0.25 percentage points and provide an additional 84-day maturity operation alongside the existing one-week swap operations.

Despite these measures by central banks around the world, concerns over the contraction of the real economy are growing, which is interpreted as the cause of the sharp stock market decline.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.