LONDON - Stocks resumed their plunge, wiping out more than US$3 trillion in value this week alone, and US Treasuries yields hit record lows on Thursday as the coronavirus spread faster outside China and investors fled to safe havens.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index opened 2.3 percent lower and Italy's blue-chip index sank. Dozens of European companies have warned about potential damage to their profits.

In the United States, Microsoft became the second trillion-dollar company to warn about its results after Apple. Its Frankfurt-listed shares were down 4 percent.

Global equities have now fallen for six straight days. Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge was near its late 2018 highs.

Spot gold rose 0.5 percent to US$1,649 per ounce and silver gained 1 percent to US$18.03 an ounce. Gold prices hit a seven-year high at near US$1,688 per ounce on Monday.

“Safe-haven currencies are doing very well and gold is heading back higher, and unless we see a slowdown in the coronavirus cases outside China, risk sentiment will continue to be undermined,” said Peter Kinsella, global head of FX strategy at UBP in London

Meanwhile, the yield on US Treasuries, which falls when prices rise, dropped below 1.3 percent and the yield curve continued to send recession warnings.

Markets are pricing a roughly even chance of the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next month and have almost fully priced in a cut by April. 

Yields on benchmark German 10-year maturities fell to -0.5140 percent. Italian debt underperformed as Europe’s worst flare-up of the virus in that country raised fears of a recession there.

E-mini futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.3 percent and oil, sensitive to global growth, fell more than 1 percent to its cheapest in over a year.

Analysts have downgraded forecasts for global growth, and policymakers from Asia, Europe and the United States have begun to prepare for a steeper economic downturn.

South Korean stocks shed another 1.05 percent on Thursday, closing at a four-month low, as it reported its largest daily rise in new virus cases since first case last month.

Unnerving investors further, the Bank of Korea kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday, even though it downgraded its growth outlook.

With the infections rate in China slowing, the blue-chip CSI300 index finished up 0.3 percent. China's central bank said on Thursday that it would ensure ample liquidity to help limit the impact of the epidemic.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.5 percent, taking it more than 4 percent lower for the week.

Japan’s Nikkei dropped 2 percent to a four-month low amid more worries the Tokyo Olympic Games would be cancelled or shifted.

Safe-haven currencies such as the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc gained on Thursday with the Japanese currency heading towards 110 yen to the dollar, up nearly 2 percent so far this week. The dollar fell 0.32 percent.

That was enough to help drag the Aussie dollar from an 11-year low and lend support to the euro.