Coronavirus wipes €3.7Bn off Lisbon stock market
National investors have taken €3.7Bn from the Lisbon stock market over two sessions over fears that the Coronavirus will spread further into Europe.
The losses on the PSI-20 were greater than the current value of Portugal’s bank BCP (worth €2.6Bn).
Panic gripped the markets again on Tuesday as more European countries registered their first cases, including Italy (Lombardy) with 320 infected, Spain (Three cases and 1000 in isolation in Tenerife) but no confirmed cases so far on Portuguese territory.
The PSI-20, the main Portuguese index, lost 2% after seeing its worst single day on Monday since the Brexit referendum result in June 2016.
Over the two days, the company that saw the biggest losses was energy giant EDP which only days before had achieved its highest share prices ever following bumper results. This week, however, shares slumped 7%, the equivalent of €1.2Bn. The Portuguese multinational utility has an overall value of €16.5Bn.
But it was’t just EDP which saw value wiped off shares. BCP, Galp, Jerónimo Martins, Galp and EDP Renováveis all lost share value on the Lisbon stock market.
EDP Renováveis and oil and gas company Galp saw their market caps loose around €500 million with a 4.6% and 5% loss respectively.
Multinational supermarket giant Jerónimo Martins, the company with the fourth largest share listing on the stock market, plunged in value by €360 million over the two days but is still worth a hefty €10.44 Bn.
The part-Angolan owned bank BCP saw €250 million wiped off its overall shares value, worth €2.6 Bn after losing 8.75% over the past two sessions.