Asian markets ended lower again today, as a spike in coronavirus infections beyond mainland China threatened to damage global economic growth, forcing investors to dump risk assets. So Japan's Nikkei-225 index and China's Shanghai Composite index fell 0.8 percent, each; Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slipped 0.7 percent; South Korea's Kospi index dropped 1.3 percent and Singapore's Straits Times index declined 1.1 percent.

In more news on coronavirus, both China and South Korea reported 500 new cases, while there are signs of fresh outbreak in other countries such as Thailand and Bahrain.

Asia reported hundreds of new coronavirus cases today, beside the first US soldier to be infected, as the United States warned of an inevitable pandemic. Also, Hong Kong's government today said it will give a 10,000 HK dollars handout to seven million permanent residents in a bid to jump-start a recession-hit economy now compounded by the coronavirus outbreak.

In Europe, key indices traded sharply lower for the fifth straight day today. So London's FTSE-100 had dropped 1.6 percent; France's CAC-40 had declined 2.1 percent and Germany's DAX had slumped 2.5 percent. In the past four trading sessions, market capitalization worth 3 trillion dollars has been wiped off, with economists cutting growth forecasts and companies warning of lower earnings due to the virus.