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· 10-year Treasury yield hits all-time low of 0.808% as coronavirus rocks markets

U.S. government debt prices rose again on Friday morning, with yields hitting record lows at the end of a wild week on Wall Street as the coronavirus continues to roil markets.

At around 2:30 a.m. ET, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to price, touched an all-time low of 0.8081%. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond notched a record low 1.4186%.

· US Treasury yields hit fresh record low

The US treasury yields continue to slide as fears about the fallout from the virus outbreak is forcing investors to rotate money out of risk assets and into safe havens.

The yield on the 30-year note is currently trading at a new record low of 1.52%, representing a three basis point drop on the day. The previous record low of 1.529% was reached on Mar. 3.

The benchmark 10-year yield is also trading at a lifetime low of 0.892% and the two-year yield, which closely mimics short-term interest rate expectations, is currently seen at 0.586%, having hit a 44-month low of 0.548% on Thursday.

· Japan will ease monetary policy this month, tracking the U.S. Federal Reserve’s surprise move this week, as the coronavirus jolts markets and stokes fears of a recession, a majority of economists polled by Reuters said.

Markets are speculating the BOJ, too, could ease monetary policy at its next rate review on March 18-19, or even before that if fears the economic fallout from the epidemic triggers a sharp stock price fall or an unwelcome yen spike that hurts Japan’s export-reliant economy.

· President Donald Trump said on Thursday the U.S. economy might take a hit from the coronavirus outbreak but predicted the challenge would eventually pass and defended his handling of the crisis.

· Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said on Thursday that he supported the U.S. central bank’s emergency interest rate cut this week, and added the Fed could cut rates further if the impact of the coronavirus is worse than expected.

· Coronavirus could cut global growth by 0.1% to 0.4%, ADB says

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Friday the coronavirus outbreak is set to trim economic growth in developing Asia and around the world this year.

The outbreak could slash global gross domestic product by 0.1 to 0.4%, with financial losses forecast to reach between $77 billion and $347 billion, the Manila-based lender said.

Economic growth in China and developing Asia, excluding China, could be trimmed by 0.3 to 1.7% and 0.2 to 0.5%, respectively, the ADB said in an analysis that outlined best- and worst-case scenarios.

The ADB said the coronavirus outbreak could lead to sharp declines in domestic demand, tourism and business travel, trade and production linkages, supply disruptions, hurting growth in developing Asia.

· The coronavirus crisis could knock $211 billion from economies throughout Asia Pacific, S&P Global Ratings said in a report.

It will particularly affect Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand which will “enter or flirt with recession,” the report said. S&P Global Ratings also trimmed its growth forecast for China from 5.7% for 2020, to 4.8%

· The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted the education of nearly 300 million students across the world and could threaten their future educational rights, according a UNESCO report released Wednesday.

· Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus epidemic, will likely see new infections drop to zero by the end of this month, an expert with the country’s top panel on battling the illness said on Thursday, even as the city reported a quicker rise in new confirmed cases.

Mainland China had 139 new confirmed cases as of Wednesday, the National Health Commission (NHC) said, bringing the total accumulated number of cases to 80,409. Authorities reported 119 new cases the previous day and 125 the day before that.

· The European Central Bank will not follow the Federal Reserve in cutting interest rates to soften the economic threat from the coronavirus outbreak, even though the median chances of a euro zone recession have doubled in the last month.

While a March 3-4 Reuters poll of economists showed around 40% expect a further ECB interest rate cut at some point this year, the results underscored the central bank’s limited policy options, given its deposit rate is already at -0.50%.

“While the current situation is extremely fluid, it is unclear how much the ECB’s current position will change solely in light of the Fed’s move,” noted Greg Fuzesi, an economist at JP Morgan.

· Oil slid 1% on Friday as worries about global oil demand and economic growth slowdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak were heightened by concern over non-OPEC crude producers not yet having agreed to cut output further to support prices.

Brent crude fell 49 cents, or 0.98%, to $49.50 per barrel by 0735 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was down 46 cents, or 1%, at $45.44 per barrel.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Thursday pushed for crude output by OPEC and associated producers - a group known as OPEC+ - to be cut by an extra 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in total until the end of 2020. The call came ahead of an OPEC+ meeting scheduled for Friday in Vienna.