Equity markets have taken a big fall as concerns grow we could see a repeat of the volatility seen in March amid rising coronavirus infections.

The market moves come as prime minister Boris Johnson announced new curbs in a bid to halt the spread of Covid-19, but stopped short of ordering a new national lockdown that had been reported as a possibility.

The stocks most sold off were mainly in the travel and leisure sectors, involving the companies most affected by the new restrictions and the U-turn in Government advice asking people to work from home again.

The hospitality sector will bear the brunt of curbs to our social lives in the next few weeks, with pubs and restaurants ordered to close at 10pm and use table service only.

This was reflected in the plummeting share prices of pub groups, with JD Wetherspoon (JDW) and Marston’s (MARS) in particular suffering big falls. The former has announced 450 job cuts at its pubs in six airports amid the plunge in demand.

While City Pub Group (CPC:AIM), which bounced back over 100% from its March lows as it boasted of trading profitably when its pubs reopened in July, has seen almost all of its recovery since then wiped out as it nears an all-time low.

Travel stocks were also badly hit with all six airlines on the London market seeing double-digit share price falls, with British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines (IAG) the worst affected as it fell over 15% to around 94p.

Leisure and travel stocks have already had a tough year, so any further setbacks to their recovery will not please the market at all.

The sell-off could also cause a nasty shock to a number of fund managers. A survey this month of 186 investors and strategists by Absolute Strategy Research, working in teams responsible for $7 trillion of investors’ money, showed the majority expected corporate earnings to be higher in the next 12 months. New lockdown measures would make this less likely.

In a further sign that the current sell-off is seeing the same pattern if not quite the same trajectory as six months ago, online grocer Ocado (OCDO) and takeaway app Just Eat Takeaway (JET) were at one point two rare gainers in the FTSE 100 on 21 September.

Both companies have seen benefits from the pandemic, with Just Eat reporting a 44% rise in revenue to €1 billion for the six months to 30 June, while in a recent trading update Ocado said retail revenue grew 52% to £587.3 million in the 13 weeks to 30 August, with order sizes remaining above pre-crisis levels.

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