Coronavirus: Philippines shut down stock market

As the Philippines battle the spread of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19, the country's Stock Exchange has shut down trading, becoming the first country to do so.

The shut down begins today, March 17, and is expected to last until further notice.

This is coming after the country's COVID-19 cases rose to 187 with four recovered patients and 12 deaths as of today.

President Rodrigo Duterte had informed of the decision, on March 16, to widen a month-long lockdown of the capital region to cover the country's main Luzon island, home to at least 57 million people.

The Philippines benchmark index fell 8 percent on March 16 and is down 20 percent for March so far, already its worst since October 2008.

The global record as of March 17 shows that there are currently 186,665 infected patients with almost 7,500 deaths, according to Worldometer reports which added that over 80,000 persons have recovered.

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