TORONTO - Canadian stocks plunged Thursday posting their biggest drop in eight decades as concerns mounted that the coronavirus pandemic will impact economic growth.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 1,761.64 points or 12% to 12,508.45, its biggest one day drop since May 1940, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Trading was halted earlier in the day amid dramatic selling at the opening. The nation’s benchmark slumped to its lowest since February 2016 at the close.

“The most important thing right now is to focus on liquidity, focus on safe yields and non-cyclical parts of market,” including Canadian banks, David Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research and Associates Inc., said in a phone interview. He’s “nibbling back into the market” and advising clients to look for stocks where dividends are safe.

Rosenberg, the former Merrill Lynch chief economist, who has long been forecasting a recession, thinks one has already begun in Canada and the U.S.

“This is an absolutely horrible situation, at every level,” he said.

A growing chorus of economists believe Canada is on the brink of recession as the economy takes a double hit from the coronavirus and tanking oil prices, ramping up pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to boost its fiscal stimulus package.

Don’t bank on a quick bounce, at least according to Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

“The caveat here is that we do not believe there is a V-shape recovery given the magnitude of the recent technical damage in market internals,” the bank’s technical analyst Sid Mokhtari said in a note to clients.

Crude oil slumped further after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would restrict travel from Europe for the next 30 days in an attempt to contain the coronavirus, pummeling fuel demand.

Trudeau is in self-isolation and working from home while his wife awaits the results of a Covid-19 test. Sophie Gregoire Trudeau had been exhibiting flu-like symptoms after recently returning from a speaking engagement in London, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

While her symptoms have subsided, she’s self-isolating at home as she awaits the test results.

The prime minister isn’t exhibiting any symptoms.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 2,352.60 points, or 9.99 per cent, to 21,200.62. The S&P 500 index shed 260.74 points, or 9.51 per cent, to 2,480.64, while the Nasdaq composite fell by 750.25 points, or 9.43 per cent, to 7,201.80.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.36 cents US compared with an average of 72.75 cents US on Wednesday.

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The April crude contract fell US$1.48 to US$31.50 per barrel and the April natural gas contract shed 3.7 cents to US$1.841 per mmBTU.

The April gold contract declined by US$52.00 to US$1,590.30 an ounce and the May copper contract dropped by nearly 3 cents to roughly US$2.47 a pound.

With files from The Canadian Press