By Caitlin Ostroff and Gunjan Banerji 

Stocks and Treasury yields dropped Friday as precious metals rallied on early signs of the coronavirus outbreak curtailing economic growth in some markets.

The S&P 500 index fell 0.9% shortly after the opening bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 244 points, or 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.3%.

U.S. stocks are on track for declines this week, while traditionally safer assets like gold and government bonds are headed toward gains.

The concurrent gains in precious metals and government bonds this year have highlighted the jitters that have percolated markets even as major U.S. indexes are sitting close to their records. Typically, investors ditch haven assets like gold and government bonds as stocks crest to fresh highs. Some analysts have attributed the rush for haven assets to the viral outbreak.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell sharply to 1.456% in early trading Friday, from 1.524% Thursday as bond prices rose. Gold prices rose about 1.7%, continuing a rally that has sent the precious metal to seven-year peaks.

The yield on 10-year Treasurys has traded below the three-month yield since Tuesday as investors seek longer-duration U.S. bonds as a safe investment amid coronavirus fears, said Andrey Kuznetsov, a senior credit portfolio manager at Hermes Investment Management.

"If we are in an environment when we will see a lower-than-expected growth on the back of coronavirus, this will increase demand for low-risk assets," he said.

Investors may be underestimating the impact of the outbreak on U.S. companies' earnings as economic activity slows in China and tourism takes a hit, Goldman Sachs Group warned. More than 75,000 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus, and over 2,000 have died globally. South Korea reported its first fatality, while two patients in Iran also died and confirmed cases began to climb in Beijing.

The worries about the coronavirus come as manufacturing data has continued to disappoint. Preliminary figures for Japan's February manufacturing activity meanwhile showed the sharpest contraction in more than seven years, Deutsche Bank said. Data on the country's services sector fell to the lowest since April 2014 as the spread of coronavirus hurt tourism, according to IHS Markit.

While German figures for manufacturing showed slight improvement, it may be still too early to capture the impact of the coronavirus, said Aila Mihr, a senior analyst at Danske Bank Research. New export orders pointing to how many German goods are being purchased from countries including China remained weak.

The figures also showed longer delivery times from suppliers to Germany. While this usually indicates more demand for goods, investors see it now as a result of the shutdown in Chinese supply chains and an indication that the coronavirus is weighing on the German economy, she said.

"In the grand scheme of things, we kind of read them as the calm before the storm," Ms. Mihr said. "We don't think we have seen the worst yet."

Investors have also been parsing individual earnings releases in recent days. Shares of Deere rose 8.3% after the tractor and construction machinery maker posted earnings that beat expectations for the first quarter.

Sprint gained 6.6% after the wireless carrier and T-Mobile US agreed on new terms for their merger.

Dropbox climbed 18.9% after the file-sharing service reported quarterly results that beat Wall Street's expectations.

Amrith Ramkumar contributed to this article.

Write to Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com and Gunjan Banerji at Gunjan.Banerji@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 21, 2020 10:12 ET (15:12 GMT)

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