The Tel Aviv 35 and 125 indices closed with 0.05% and 0.12% rise, respectively. In the US: NASDAQ and S&P rose 1%. In China: New Year’s vacation has been extended in order to deal with the crisis.

More than a week has passed since the Coronavirus outbreak, and stock exchanges in Israel and around the world appear to be recovering from the sharp declines. TA-35 and TA-125 closed yesterday with the slight increase of 0.05% and 0.12%, respectively. The TA-SME60 index rose by 0.6%. These are slight increases, but they are the change trend after various indices plunged between 1.4% to 1.6%, with oil stocks falling by 2.5%.

In the US, as of yesterday’s evening (Israel local time), before trading closed, the main indices – Dow Jones, NASDAQ and S&P – were up at about 1% each, after closing Tuesday night with declines about 2% each.

The Dow Jones has lost all its gains since the beginning of 2020, dropping to less than 29,000 points. The British FTSE, the German DAX and the European STOXX – each rose close to 1%, and this is after the 2%-2.7% fall the day before yesterday. In Asia, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange will only open today, and the stock exchanges that had opened in South Korea, Singapore and Australia, recorded price declines. In China, the source of the epidemic, the stock exchange will get back to work only next Monday, following the extension of the New Year’s holiday in the country. The yuan, China’s national currency, recorded a 1% depreciation.

Michael Tayer, a member of the board at “GMT”, company specializing in money transfers and foreign exchange, and a former CIO at the Bank of Jerusalem, commented that the tourism implications will be felt not only in China, but also worldwide: “China is tightly connected to world countries and to the West,” Tayer told to “Israel Today”, “Chinese outbound and inbound tourism both have potential for spreading the virus, and are therefore significantly affected. This certainly affects tourism in other Asian countries, especially in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Australia.”

Text: Gilad Zwick

Photo: Chuttersnup, Unsplash

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