Throughout the week, Comex futures gold contracts rose by $105.70, making the highest weekly record since 2011.

The Gold Traders Association reported on Friday that gold bar closed at a buying price of Bt24,900 per baht weight and selling price of Bt25,000, while gold ornaments’ buying price was Bt24,453.08 and selling price Bt25,500.

According to the US Johns Hopkins University, there are more than 100,000 cases of Covid-19 patients worldwide, while the number of patients had increased outside China.

At 8pm US time on Friday (8am Thailand time Saturday), the number of patients worldwide had reached 100,055. China has the most number of patients, followed by South Korea, Iran and Italy, while the death toll was 3,398.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation increased the death rate from Covid-19 to 3.4 per cent from the previous 2 per cent.

The exemptions, dated March 5, were posted on the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

Recipients of the exemptions include VistaLab Technologies Inc., Cardinal Health and Medline Industries Inc. Disposable lab coats, medical drapes, exam gloves, medicine cups and stethoscope covers are among the more than 100 products exempted, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

USTR granted the exemptions in response to requests made by the companies. In a Jan. 31 letter, the Advanced Medical Technology Association urged USTR to lift the tariffs on products “critical to helping to contain the coronavirus in the U.S. and in China.”

“Including medical technology products on the USTR tariff list is troubling from a public health perspective,” the industry group added.

The Trump administration began imposing extra import tariffs on goods made in China in 2018, in a bid to force Beijing to abandon trade policies that the U.S. has long labeled discriminatory. The countries signed a partial trade truce in January, but most of the tariffs remain in place.

In a statement Friday, Medline Industries called the exemptions “helpful,” but added that USTR had denied some of the company’s exemption requests.

“Just yesterday, 33 other exclusion requests were denied, including surgical drapes and biohazard bags,” said the company, based in Northfield, Illinois. Overall the tariffs have cost Medline more than $100 million and had “a significant impact on healthcare and its costs,” the company said.

The report, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, offer the snapshot of an economy that was relatively strong in the days leading up to the coronavirus’s spread into the United States.

The jobs data were collected largely before U.S. financial markets began a dramatic slide, oil prices fell sharply, the Federal Reserve announced an emergency interest rate cut, and Congress rushed to pass an $8.3 billion spending bill to bulwark the government’s health readiness.

The unemployment rate in February fell slightly to 3.5 percent, near a 50-year low. The outstanding growth was driven by gains in health care, restaurants, government and construction hiring. But many investors and business executives are more concerned about the future.

Wall Street ended its tempestuous, week-long coronavirus ride on Friday with all three major stock indexes in the red for this year and investors continued to flee to the safety of government bonds because they are unsure what the virus’s impact on the economy will be.

“The employment report was nearly perfect in February before the growing economic storm posed by the spreading coronavirus around the country that threatens many industries where the public gathers from movies, to travel, to the airline industry, even shops and malls,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist of MUFG Union Bank, wrote in a commentary Friday.

President Donald Trump heralded the “tremendous” jobs report while he signed Congress’ $8.3 billion emergency coronavirus spending package. He said the jobs report was evidence of the country’s continued economic resilience in the face of the outbreak. But as he spoke, White House officials were considering targeted steps to help the airline, travel, and cruise industries stabilize after many Americans have canceled trips because of concerns about the virus’s reach.

Over the past few weeks, experts have gone from sanguine to increasingly alarmed about the virus’ threat to global growth, as the outbreak has spread to nearly 90 countries and sickened more than 100,000. Global markets have shown volatility and fallen sharply as investors monitored the coronavirus’ dampening effect on manufacturing, travel and consumer spending. Analysts are predicting global growth could slow to the lowest levels since the financial crisis this quarter.

The price of oil dropped sharply Friday as talks between OPEC and Russia over production cuts collapsed without a deal. Brent crude was down 8 percent, to about $46 a barrel by late morning Eastern time.

“This is an existential threat to many oil companies if the price per barrel doesn’t stabilize and go higher,” said John Kilduff of Again Capital. “Many of the companies are unprofitable when oil prices are under $50 per barrel. They will drop like flies over the course of the second half of the year if prices don’t move higher.”

Stalled production at Chinese factories has dealt blows to toy makers and electronics manufacturers alike, many of whom were already dealing with the unpredictability of President Trump’s trade war with China. Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve took the unusual step of cutting the benchmark U.S. interest rate by half a percentage point, to get ahead of economic and financial fallout from the coronavirus.

As investors have largely fled global stocks in the past two weeks, many have piled into the safety of U.S. government debt, which pays a low yield but also carries low risk. At its current price, the 10-year Treasury bond is paying less than 1 percent interest. The 10-year note is a crucial global financial measure that can be an indicator of future economic health, as well as a marker for mortgage rates and car loans.

“The low yield on the 10-year Treasury is a sign that the investors are very concerned about future growth in the economy,” said Eric Jacobson, senior fixed income research analyst at Morningstar. “That’s what happens. When people are worried about everything else, they run to Treasurys because they know they are going to get paid back.”

The labor market data showed just how far the economy had come before the coronavirus outbreak began taking its toll. Temporary jobs, which may have been one of the first employment areas impacted by the coronavirus, declined by 3,300 in February.

The fresh February data shows that women continue to outnumber men in the workforce, a threshold which was crossed in December for only the second time in history.

Wage growth continued to climb, with workers seeing their average hourly earnings rise 3 percent in the past year.

Still, economists are worried about the leisure and hospitality industries going forward. Chinese tourists are suddenly missing from major tourist destinations, and Visa warned of a significant blow to profits from reduced travel and tourism to and from Asia. Global airline stocks have shed $41 billion in value, or 25 percent of the sector’s market cap, in the past month. The International Air Transport Association is predicting an 11 to 19 percent drop-off in global passenger revenue this year, driven by falls in airfreight and cargo.

“Many of these industries, such as leisure and hospitality, are among those most likely to be affected by the coronavirus and related fears,” Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed, wrote in a commentary. “This forward momentum could help these industries weather this shock, but also raises the possibility that job growth may slow significantly if the impact of the virus hits these industries hard.”

Industries with large numbers of workers who can do their jobs from home are less likely to be impacted, said Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter’s labor economist. In the past three years, ZipRecruiter, an online employment marketplace, has seen the share of job postings that offer work from home increase 40 percent.

“We’re about to see a major experiment in increased work from home,” Pollak said. “Work that’s not based on person-to-person service provision, as with manicures, teaching or nursing, may not be affected at all.”

Analysts had predicted an uptick of 140,000 to 170,000 jobs. But some of these big gains are expected to be lost in the months to come if the coronavirus outbreak doesn’t end soon.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished Friday down more than 250 points, rallying hundreds of points in the final minutes of the trading session. The blue chip index dropped despite a strong jobs report Friday that exceeded analysts’ expectations. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite declined nearly 2% each.

Contributing to the sell-off was the alarming drop in the 10-year Treasury yield, which at its current price means bonds are paying less than 1% interest. The 10-year note is a crucial global financial measure that can be an indicator of future economic health, as well as a marker for mortgage rates and car loans. Investors are fleeing equities for the safety of the 10-year notes, which are viewed as a bulwark against financial mayhem.

“The low yield on the 10-year Treasury is a sign that the investors are very concerned about future growth in the economy,” said Eric Jacobson, senior fixed income research analyst at Morningstar. “That’s what happens. When people are worried about everything else, they run to Treasurys because they know they are going to get paid back.”

Despite all the turbulence, which included several thousand-point swings in the Dow, the stock market ended the week higher from where it began. But it is still down sharply where its peak in mid February, and the coronavirus’s spread in the United States and elsewhere has many investors concerned that economic problems will only worsen.

The trading day was rougher in Europe, with the benchmark Stoxx 600 index and Germany’s DAX both plummeting 3%, France’s CAC 40 down 4% and Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 3.6%.

Asian markets were less bruised then Europe, due in part to reports that Chinese industries may be stabilizing. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declined 1% and the tech-heavy Shanghai Index slid 1%. Japan’s Nikkei was down around 3% early Friday.

“While the rest of the world is freaking out, China’s going back to work,” said Mark Greeven, professor of innovation and strategy at the IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, in an email.

All 11 Standard & Poor’s stock market sectors lost value Friday, with energy shellacked by a 10% drop in the price of a barrel of oil. Only four of the 30 Dow Jones components were in positive territory heading into the final minutes of the session.

The price of oil dropped sharply Friday as talks between OPEC and Russia over production cuts collapsed without a deal. Brent crude was down 8%, to about $46 a barrel by late morning Eastern time.

Saudi Arabia had pushed hard for a reduction of 1.5 million barrels a day in order to prop up the price as world demand for oil weakens in the face of the covid-19 epidemic. But Russia, which has been in a cooperative arrangement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries since 2016 called OPEC+, believes it can weather lower prices. Cheaper oil would allow Russia to maintain market share while putting a squeeze on American shale producers, who have dramatically increased production over the past four years but face higher expenses.

But the apparent failure to reach an agreement at the OPEC meeting in Vienna Friday threatens to rupture Russia’s ties with the cartel, although the Russian news agency TASS reported that Russia has asked for more time and is agreeable to further talks.

As Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak left the meeting Friday, he told reporters, “We have just signed a joint document that we will continue to work and interact,” according to the Ria Novosti news agency.

The breakdown “is an unexpected development that falls far below our worst case scenario and in our view will create one of the most severe oil price crises in history,” Bjoernar Tonhaugen, head of oil market research for Rystad Energy, a Norwegian firm, wrote in a note. “The decision risks sending oil prices into a free-fall.”

“This is an existential threat to many oil companies if the price per barrel doesn’t stabilize and go higher,” said John Kilduff of Again Capital. “Many of the companies are unprofitable when oil prices are under $50 per barrel. They will drop like flies over the course of the second half of the year if prices don’t move higher.”

Low oil prices hurt the petroleum industry, but consumers benefit because of lower gasoline prices and home heating costs. Because oil is a base ingredient in many products – from drugs to plastic – low prices can help blunt inflation.

The strong jobs report on Friday did not move the market much. The U.S. economy added 273,000 jobs in February, showing impressive growth and strength even amid concerns about the economic fallout of the coronavirus.

The unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.5% from 3.6%. The jobless rate remains near a 50-year low. The outstanding growth was driven by gains in health care, restaurants, government and construction hiring.

At Thursday’s close, U.S. stocks had declined a total of $3.67 trillion in value since the market’s high on Feb. 19, according to Howard Silverblatt of S&P Dow Jones Indices.

“The easiest path during this period of uncertainty is to sell first and ask questions later,” said Sarat Sethi of Douglas C. Lane & Associates. “People need to be prepared for this to continue for a little while. The reaction to this virus will slow economic activity for at least the next couple of quarters. But it won’t permanently impair the economy.”

The three leading U.S. stock indexes tipped into a correction for the second time this week on Thursday. A correction is a 10% decline from recent highs.

The Dow closed down almost 970 points Thursday as investors fled stocks and headed for the safety of U.S. debt. The Dow ended Thursday 3.5% lower on the day to finish at 26,121. The S&P 500 fell to 3,023, a 3.4% drop. The technology-laden Nasdaq Composite slid to 8,738.60, erasing 3.1% of its value.

All 11 S&P sectors had finished negative, with financials, industrials and energy the worst performers. All 30 Dow blue-chip stocks were in the red. United Technologies, aerospace giant Boeing, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs were among the Dow’s biggest drags. Profits for financial firms decline in a low-interest rate environment.

The markets had been seesawing all week. Thursday’s market trauma followed an exuberant Wednesday when investors – heartened by Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday victories – propelled the Dow nearly 1,200 points upward, more than 4.5%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq climbed 4.2% and 3.85%, respectively. The bounce came after the International Monetary Fund committed $50 billion to fight coronavirus in low-income and emerging-market countries.

Lack of clarity on where the virus was headed had dulled investors’ attempts to bring some equilibrium to stock and bond markets.

“Despite all the talk about the virus, the truth is that no one knows what path it will take, how long it will last, and how severe it will be,” said Nancy Davis, chief investment officer of Greenwich, Connecticut-based Quadratic Capital in a note this week. “So the uncertainty will continue to feed higher volatility.”

The decline in the yield of the 10-year Treasury note isn’t all bad. Many lenders mark their interest rates to the 10-year, and that can have a salutary effect on the economy, driving mortgage rates down, spurring borrowing for businesses and home-equity loans as well as spending in general. On Thursday, mortgage rates also hit record lows.

The market mayhem failed to ease even after President Donald Trump on Friday signed a $8.3 billion emergency spending bill to combat the coronavirus that the Senate passed on Wednesday.

The money includes research funds to find a virus vaccine and assistance to local communities to combat the epidemic. It also will help fund small businesses to help them navigate the crisis.

The global death toll from the coronavirus had surpassed 3,200, and more than 97,000 people have been infected. The outbreak’s hold on the United States is also tightening, with California declaring a state of emergency after its first coronavirus-linked death brought the nation’s death toll to 11.

The outbreak has disrupted global supply chains and threatens to stymie economic growth since the first cases emerged in Wuhan, China, in late December, roiling markets across the globe. Trump has staked much of his argument for reelection on the strength of the economy and of Wall Street, which had been setting record highs as recently as three weeks ago.

Global travel is plummeting as event cancellations and travel restrictions mount, delivering a brutal blow to tourism, aviation, cruises and hospitality. Airline stocks rebounded Friday after White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said the administration was considering a stimulus to cushion the industry from the effects of the coronavirus on travel.

Delta Air Lines, American and Southwest all spiked on the news.