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Outbreaks of the virus outside China have sparked concerns among investors of global economic damage.
Nervousness about the spreading coronavirus gripped Wall Street again on Wednesday, and an early rise in stock prices gave way to a third day of selling this week.
The S&P 500 was down 0.4 percent at the end of trading, bringing its losses for the week to more than 6 percent. Bonds rallied, pushing the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to a record low for a second day, and the price of oil also fell.
Investors have been contending with the potential for the coronavirus outbreak to disrupt global trade and slow growth, and stock prices around the world have reflected concerns about the virus’s spread outside China. More than 80,000 people have been infected by the virus, which has killed more than 2,700.
Wednesday began with the S&P 500 rising more than 1.5 percent before giving up those gains. Market observers attributed the change in sentiment to comments from Germany’s health minister that the country was at the beginning of a coronavirus epidemic.
Later in the day, officials reported that 83 people in Nassau County, N.Y., just outside New York City, were in voluntary isolation for potential coronavirus exposure.
Elsewhere, the authorities in Italy are struggling to contain an outbreak that is threatening to disrupt Europe’s fourth-largest economy. Greece and Brazil reported their first cases. Dozens in Iran have died from the virus, with cases spreading across the country’s borders throughout the Middle East. South Korea is working to manage the largest outbreak outside China, with more than 1,200 reported cases.
As the virus spreads, economists warn the crisis could roil global supply chains and hamper economic growth. Concerned investors are dumping stocks, seeking safer investments like government bonds, pushing prices up and yields down.
The focus of this selling has increasingly been stocks in the United States and Europe, where investors had — for weeks — shrugged off the outbreak while it was mostly contained to China. But as the number of cases in China appears to have peaked, outbreaks outside the country are on the rise.
That has created a “divergence” between so-called developed markets like the United States and emerging markets, like China, that were initially hard hit, said Mark Haefele, the chief investment officer of UBS Global Wealth Management, in a research note to clients.
“We believe the divergence we are now seeing between developed- and emerging-market equity performance is indicative of China’s relative success in containing the outbreak, and of the increased uncertainty facing developed markets,” Mr. Haefele wrote. “We expect this divergence to continue.”
President Trump on Wednesday sought to place the blame for the market turbulence on the media outlets CNN and MSNBC, which he said on Twitter were “doing everything possible” to make the virus outbreak look “as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible.” He added that the United States was “in great shape.”
Energy companies led the selling Wednesday as oil prices declined, while cruise operators including Royal Caribbean and Carnival continued to fall sharply. Both stocks have lost more than 30 percent over the past month.
After the close of trading on Wednesday, Microsoft warned investors that it would not be able to meet its sales forecasts for its personal computing business, because “the supply chain is returning to normal operations at a slower pace than anticipated.”
Microsoft’s shares, which rose during regular trading on Wednesday, fell in after-hours trading.
In the oil market, West Texas intermediate, the American benchmark, dipped below $50 a barrel during trading on Wednesday. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was under $55 a barrel.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.