* Fed cut fails to halt slide; S&P 500 drops 2.8%
* Australia down 1.4% in early trade, Nikkei futures negative
* Yen hits 5-month high vs dollar
* Asian stock markets: https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4
By Tom Westbrook
SINGAPORE, March 4 (Reuters) - Asian shares were poised to drop on Wednesday and bonds soared, after an emergency rate cut from the U.S. Federal Reserve was unable to quell investor fears over the coronavirus's widening fallout.
Wall Street indexes fell sharply overnight, gold surged and the dollar sank after the Fed's surprise cut of the federal funds rate by a half percentage point. yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries, which falls when prices rise, hit a once unimaginable low of 0.9060%. US/
In Asia, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO fell 1.4% in early trade. Nikkei futures NKc1 traded in negative territory and e-mini futures for the S&P 500 ESc1 fell 0.4%. Trade in Treasury futures implied a yield of 0.86% on U.S. 10-year paper TYc1 .
The dollar hit a five-month low against the safe-haven Japanese yen JPY= . FRX/
"The market reaction to the Fed's decisive action is worrying for investors," said Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at brokerage CMC Markets in Sydney.
"There is now a question over the ability of monetary policy to halt plummeting asset prices. The seeming ineffectiveness of further monetary easing will almost certainly lead to further calls on governments to push the fiscal stimulus button."
More than 3,000 people have been killed by the coronavirus, about 3.4% of those infected - far above seasonal flu's fatality rate of under 1%.
It continues to spread quickly beyond the outbreak's epicentre in China, with Italy overnight reporting a jump in deaths to a total of 79. Fed's easing underscored the bank's concern, coming two weeks ahead of a scheduled policy meeting, where traders had already priced in a 50 basis point cut.
But it has failed to put an immediate floor under stock prices.
U.S. markets had initially jumped more than 2% but then dropped as traders worried whether pumping more money into the system would address the central problem - a drop in business activity as workers and consumers stay home.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI , Nasdaq composite .IXIC and S&P 500 .SPX each closed down close to 3%.
"The question here is whether a conventional interest rate response is sufficient, or whether it requires also a fiscal response," said Sameer Goel, chief strategist, Asia macro, at Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) in Singapore.
"It's not an economic shock, it's a shock driven by a non-economic factor. It's still not clear how big the problem ultimately is, or could be, and until you know that, it's hard to know how much medicine to apply to it."
In currencies, the U.S. dollar fell across the board, sending it to an eight-week low against a basket of currencies =USD , while pushing the euro EUR= to an eight-week peak.
In Asian morning trade, the yen was the biggest mover, rising 0.2% to 106.84 per dollar, its highest since October.
Oil prices slipped, with Brent crude falling 30 cents to $51.90 per barrel LCOc1 and U.S. crude down 26 cents at $47.18 a barrel CLc1 . Gold rose 0.5% to $1647.60 an ounce XAU= .
(Editing by Sam Holmes)