Below is a snapshot of month-to-date and year-to-date returns for 72 country stock markets around the world (in local currency).  As of this morning, the average country was down 20% month-to-date and 26% year-to-date.  And this doesn’t even include the levels that North and South American equity markets are set to open at this morning, which looks to be 5-7% lower from yesterday’s close.

The country that has been hit the hardest in terms of equity market price destruction is Russia, which we haven’t heard from much regarding the COVID-19 virus.  Month-to-date, Russia is down 34.67%, and it’s down 45.18% year-to-date.  Seven other countries are down more than 30% month-to-date, including Italy, Greece, Austria, and Ireland.  France and Germany are both down close to 30%, while BRIC countries like Brazil and India are down more than 24%.

Notably on the other side of the spectrum is China, where markets are down only 5% month-to-date and 10% year-to-date.  Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional to access our interactive economic indicators monitor and much more.