Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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We're a day away from the Budget and after the biggest sell off on the financial markets since 2008 reduced the values of leading FTSE companies by more than £100bn after markets reacted to falling oil prices and the economic effects of coronavirus.

Former Chancellor Philip Hammond says the virus is "clearly a human tragedy that's playing out here, and it will affect hundreds of thousands of families across Britain and beyond, and we don't know... yet what the full extent of the epidemic is going to be.

"What we do know is that it will have an effect on the economy, because that's already starting to happen, and whatever the outcome epidemiologically, the economic impact will be real. The Chancellor will want to address that in his Budget speech tomorrow."

The FTSE 100 has steadied after opening this morning.

The share index climbed around 1% when trading began in London, where the FTSE 100 lost almost 8% of its value yesterday.

The world's largest exhibitions organiser, Informa, has cancelled or postponed 128 events worth £425m as a result of the coronavirus epidemic.

Informa boss Stephen Carter said: "We are facing a 2020 impact from Covid-19 in our events-related businesses and so we have used our strong customer and supplier relationships to swiftly deploy a material postponement programme, shifting our events calendar to later dates in 2020.

"Our brands and strong platforms continue to provide attractive opportunities for further market specialisation and future growth."

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Sofa store DFS has blamed "challenging market conditions" for a 5.7% drop in sales in the final six months of last year.

It said "consumer confidence and political uncertainty" meant fewer people visited stores and the sofa seller has warned that the coronavirus outbreak has continued to keep people away.

"At present we believe our supply chain position should normalise before the financial year end, and it is only in very recent days that we have observed any change in consumer footfall to our showrooms," said DFS boss Tim Stacey.

"While any disruption to order intake over the key trading periods of Easter and the May Bank Holidays is likely to impact our financial year 2020 results, it is reasonable to believe this may ultimately be transitory in nature; following periods of subdued demand we typically see much of that latent demand returning."

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Japanese shares recovered on Tuesday following comments made by prime minister Shinzo Abe to work closely with its central bank.

"Markets are making nervous movements amid uncertainty over the global economic outlook," Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday.

PM Abe's comments put pressure on the Bank of Japan to act on a pledge it made last week to support markets. Having fallen 5% on "Black Monday", Japan's benchmark index, the Nikkei 225, recovered to close the session 0.9% higher.

It had started the trading session more than 3% down but bounced back following Mr Abe's comments.

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Sales at French Connection fell by more than 10% in the 12 months to the end of January as tough conditions on the High Street took their toll on the fashion retailer.

The brand blamed "the planned closure of stores and the difficult retail trading environment in the UK" for a £2.9m loss for the year.

"The performance this year has not been as anticipated and we are not being assisted by the continued difficult trading conditions in the UK and potential uncertainty due to the COVID-19 coronavirus," said French Connection boss Stephen Marks.

"We believe the trading landscape in the UK is unlikely to improve in the short term and this has a potential impact on both the retail and wholesale businesses."

"Against this background we are working hard to ensure we are operating as efficiently and cost effectively as possible while working closely with all our trading partners to maximise business with them."

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

On Monday, global shares plunged in their worst day since financial crisis. What does this mean for pensions?

Jane Foley, senior currency strategist at Rabobank, says: "Anyone who's got a pension will be affected by what's happened in the markets yesterday.

"And how they're affected really depends on what their mix is in their particular pension portfolio.

"So normally if you're quiet young the investment manager will put a lot of your money into high risk assets. Now, these tend to be stocks, so you will be more affected by these falls in the stocks. However, as you get older, as you get closer to your retirement age, they tend to mix it up and put more in government debt.

"Now in the UK of course these are called gilts. Now what we saw yesterday is gilts rallying because government debt is considered to be pretty safe.

"If you were invested in government debt recently, your capital gain will be probably quite substantial."

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Shoppers avoided the High Street in February in favour of a takeaway in front of the TV, according to Barclaycard, which sees nearly half of the nation's credit and debit card transactions.

Spending on digital content and subscriptions increased by 12.4% and takeaways and fast food spending increased by 8.7% annually.

Esme Harwood, director at Barclaycard, said: "Storms, floods and fears about the spread of coronavirus have kept many Brits away from the High Street this month.

"Despite this, broader consumer spending has held up as people put their money towards enjoying a takeaway and digital subscriptions."

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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It was a bad day for financial markets yesterday - the London market was down 7.7%, the worst fall since the banking crisis more than a decade ago.

Overnight in Asia markets have been moving in the other direction - the Nikkei is up 0.85% - the oil price is up about 8%.

Stephen Clapham, an analyst from Behind the Balance Sheet, is asked why markets fell so much when we've known about coronavirus for some time.

"An easy explanation is that people are panicking," he says. "Oil fell very sharply at the weekend, and oil is kind of important because it also affects the credit markets. A bunch of shale players in the US, which fell 30% to 40% yesterday, are also heavily borrowed, and they borrow these almost junk bonds, high yield bonds, that yield a very high rate of interest. They may not be able to pay them if the oil price stays low, they may not be able to repay these bonds, which cause problems in the credit market."

BBC Radio 5 Live

More from Teresa Wickham on Wake Up to Money.

The retail analyst and former director of supermarket Safeway said: "People don't realise that big stores don't hold a whole lot of products in the back."

"In the old days, if you couldn't get the piece of meat you wanted, you'd ask them an they'd go and find it."

But she said that nowadays supermarkets operate just-in-time supply chains in which they order exactly what they need from a central depot that itself only holds enough supplies for a few days.

BBC Radio 5 Live

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The government has announced it will work with local authorities to extend the hours that deliveries can be made to supermarkets and other food retailers to help the industry respond to the coronavirus.

Retail analyst Teresa Wickham, who was a director of the supermarket Safeway, told Wake Up to Money supermarkets are prepared for this kind of event.

While there are restrictions on the number of items that people can buy of certain goods from some stores, she said: "The majority of people are quite sensible."

And she said that supermarkets have dealt with other significant issues in the past pointing to the foot-and-mouth crisis and a petrol strike that very nearly led to rationing.

BBC Radio 5 Live

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Chris Bird, the boss of one of the UK's largest specialist sports travel companies, Sport Tours International, tells Wake Up to Money that the coronavirus outbreak has already cost his business £700,000.

And he warned that those costs are likely to climb.

He said that the industry for sports events in Italy had been "decimated".

"Nothing's happening in Italy," he said. "In the short term it's had a tremendous impact of the whole of the travel industry."

"But we've dealt with these kinds of issues before," he said pointing to a hurricane in New York that disrupted the city's annual marathon and the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud that caused flights to be cancelled.

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Australia's Qantas airline is making deeper cuts to its flights, with Asia and the US hit the hardest.

The company said it would reduce international flights by nearly 25% as it sees demand fall from passengers worried about the coronavirus.

Qantas and its budget airline Jetstar will reduce operations for the next six months.

It is the latest carrier to make cutbacks, aimed at weathering the storm from a sharp drop in passengers.

BBC Radio 5 Live

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Former Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, tells Wake Up to Money on 5 Live that cutting interest rates will not be the answer to dealing with the economic impact of cornoavirus.

"I don’t think a further cut in interest rates now is going to do a great deal to help the situation," he said.

"It may be a sign of reassurance but I don’t think it’s any more than that."

"What is needed now are targeted measures to help businesses deal with a short-term crisis collapse of their cash flow and I think the Bank of England understands that very well."

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Asian stock markets traded cautiously on Tuesday as investors came to terms with "Black Monday".

Global shares took a battering on Monday as they reacted badly to the threat of an oil price war breaking out.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index dropped more than 3% at the start of Asian trading on Tuesday morning.

Having fallen 5% on Monday, Japanese shares have hit their lowest level since April 2017.

And welcome to Business Live.

After a bleak day on markets yesterday, when global shares had their worst day since the financial crisis, investors will be keeping a close eye on trading when the London Stock Exchange opens this morning.

Before that, we're expecting results from fashion chain Franch Connection and conference organiser Informa, which has had to cancel events because of the coronavirus.

As ever, we'd love to hear from you so do get in touch at bizlivepage@bbc.co.uk