If the US economy crashes, then Trump will crash. I hate to say it, but anything that might take him down is acceptable to me.
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Bad weather gets a similar result. Most of this is old news for market professionals. Any commerce tied directly to a potential natural disaster is bound to fluctuate. Prepare accordingly.
So exploding debt, lawless governance, and America running towards fascism are NBD for Wall Street. The only way is UP! These same entities have been denying global climate change and pushing back against action, science, and the Scientists. Mind you, the "science" the climate researchers ascribed to is the same science as the bacteriologists and virologist. The Scientific method has knows no discipline as it a part of all.
Like with global climate change, those in the public health relm have been warning of pandemic disease and antibiotics overuse. Tools to combat diseases........ universal health care!
Another thing Wall Street was fine with is restricted health care to the few people who have enough to pay for it. Now they are learning that keeping everyone healthy more important than money.
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The most important thing is to rebuild the channel between China and U.S. , and put down the trade dispute for now. The editors were too positive to the economy situation in U.S. , nowadays no country can be independent from global trades.
It seems to me that worry about the economic impact of the Wuhan Coronavirus is putting the cart ahead of the horse. If this becomes a pandemic, I would think the deaths it causes should be the primary worry. Any economic impact from all these deaths would be secondary.
I can't imagine too many people thinking, "It's too bad my friend or family member died, but at least my stock portfolio is ok."
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You could use this same argument for universal health care. The suffering and dying is occurring, just not enough for them to be bothered.
Something about decrease the surplus population as Dickens put it through Mr. Scrooge.
Don't blame all of this on the virus. The stock market is like the emotional body of the economy in general.
Something else is spooking it. Wonder what it is.....
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Did the same thing happen to the market with Ebola and the Bird flu? How can you be so sure what is causing people's panic? Could there be multiple causes?
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Time to reread Stephen King's _The Stand_ .
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At no other time in the past 20 years have I seen so many deeply pessimistic and cynical comments in the NYT with regard to the competency and sincerity of our federal government officals . We are all losing faith in the ability of the government to uphold their end of the Social Contract, if we have not completely lost it already.
Times are gloomy and hope is on life support.
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At no other time in the past 20 years have we had a president like Donald Trump. There's your answer.
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Well if you think about it, it is very humbling. Little, teeny one cell organisms are far better at what they do than we are to stop them. Trump will threaten China with tariffs or Trump will tell the Chinese we have the biggest, baddest, and most powerful antibiotics the world has ever seen and he won't release them unless China buys more soybeans. And anyone who tells you antibiotics don't work against viruses is spreading fake news. That should be enough to reassure his base that Donnie is on this.
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@Walking Man Antibiotics do nothing for viruses, only bacterial infections. There is no antiviral medications to fight this coronavirus, much less a test that is readily available to detect it. Be careful what you put out there since what you suggest is truly fake news.
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Antibiotics have no effect on viruses whatsoever. How can you not know this? Antibiotics kill bacteria.
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Antibiotics only work on bacteria, not viruses.
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Can we please stop citing what the evidence indicates are bogus unemployment numbers? When everyone is counted, unemployment is in the 7%-8% range, and one can be certain that unemployment among blacks is likely twice that amount. And while we are at it, the stock market is not--repeat, NOT--a gauge for how well the economy is doing. There is no discussion, for example, of the impact on the stock market of the Fed funneling billions of dollars in low interest loans to prop up the repo market. For a country with lots of smart, industrious people, how is that such important information is not in the press?
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@Maron A. Fenico. The unemployment numbers are not "bogus". They are exactly what they are defined to be. You are making the assumption that everyone who works less than full-time is "unemployed." Most of these people are working part-time for a reason - parenthood, college courses, retirement, etc. They are not unemployed.
And the black unemployment rate is 5.9 percent, just a tad higher than the lowest ever recorded.
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I believe that in a typical year over 200,000 individuals contract the flu in the US. Of these between 30,000 and 60,000 die. If these stats are true, why is there such a panic at this stage of development of the coronavirus?
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@Dave Why panic? Very good question.
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It’s true that people don’t take the flu seriously enough, but your statistics are way off. While it can happen that upwards of 60,000 people in the US die from the flu in a given year, the corresponding figure for the number of people infected is more like 45,000,000, not 200,000.
This is based on data from the CDC.
If 1 in 4 people who contracted the flu died, we’d all be in a constant panic!
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Wall street boys can panic but the men with nerves of steel will stay firm. China has so far just brought political power to the Coronavirus crisis in the Wuhan province it needs to bring sound science to the fore.
Hopefully it is a short unproductive global panic and the world will respond promptly and appropriately. China is the 2nd largest economy in the world and can easily shovel billions of dollars to come up with a multi pronged approach to effectively stop the spread of the Wuhan Corona virus (WCV). One of the prongs that is currently missing is a prophylactic response to enable those already exposed or in early stages of infection to give a chance to the immune system to ward off the infection.
I have spent 1/2 my life understanding how viruses trick our immune system starting from my NIH days and I am trying to find out how I can help the planning and execution of an effective strategy to out smart WCV and save lives. An antiviral that could be deployed right away are envelope virus neutralizing compounds EVNCs.
https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/fvl-2017-0154
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How much of the stock market "fear" is related to short sellers? Do stock market headlines enable short-sellers?
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A potential global health crisis and we have a president who cut the CDC's budget from 2018 - 2019. What other crises will we face between now and the weeks following Trump's election defeat?
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All this for a virus that is no more harmful than the common flu virus.
What a waste of resources and media space.
Here is the headline: SARS, MERS, Novel Corona virus together killed fewer humans in 2 decades than the common flu kills in one day.
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People do not die from the flu, usually. They die from complications due to the flu. About 4 out of 100 people die from this virus, but that’s compared to 14 out of 100,000 for the common flu. It should be taken seriously and it is much more deadly than the flu.
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@James
Novel Corona virus, like SARS, MERS and
common flu, all work the same way. Some people have mild symptoms, some have more severe ones, a few develop pneumonia and, in rare case, die.
There is absolutely nothing special about this Corona virus other than the media. In fact, most many Corona virus until recently were just considered new forms of the flu.
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"Stocks down on bad news from Europe."
"Stocks down despite good news from Europe."
"Stocks up on good news from Europe."
"Stocks up despite bad news from Europe."
All four of those have appeared, in one form or another, in the news for the past century and they are still just as clueless. The truth is that nobody knows why the stock market moves up or down. If we did, we wouldn't need it.
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Stocks didn't fall because of the coronavirus; the real reason was Kobe Bryant's death.
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@tom, that's doubtful; the global markets tumbled over our night, preceding today's loses.
@tom Actually, I think you're right. We always hear of the 'mood' of the market. They seem to be talking about the mood of traders and what they are watching and then having emotions about. In this case I'm guessing that all these hot money guys are more affected by the sudden, shocking loss of the mega superstar and half-billionaire Bryant than they are about the virus in China. After all, they must think, hey, I'm here making money in NYC, nowhere close to a wild animal market in Wuhan, wherever that is. But, Kobe? Hey, he was a hero, a player, and he had the big money, just like I want. Now, that would make one nervous to see the helicopters flying over Manhattan.
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The stock market is reacting to the economic impact of the virus on the Chinese economy. The local Chinese gov't apparently has made a mess of initial response to the outbreak which has spooked investor confidence. Police states with politicians who are loathe to give bad news to their superiors are slow to act. Then they over react. Certainly there is always a chance that this viral outbreak could break out of China and cause a terrible plague on the world especially in the third world. But the CDC indicated in the NYTs that the virus similar to previous flu outbreaks and can be managed.
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@c harris -At last, a voice of sanity! May I add that while test kits for this new corona virus are few, hundreds of thousands of people in Wuhan and the surrounding area are sick with flu. They have been sent home untested without so much as cold medication so that they can possibly transmit to elderly parents and children.
Photos show inspectors taking the temperatures of passengers coming off trains with ungloved hands, touching skin, foreheads and hair- although everyone is wearing masks.
I agree that despite China’s good health care, the local politicians were probably terrified to say anything right before the biggest holiday of the year- Bad luck & Big money down the drain.
Markets have been infested and in high fever long before coronavirus !
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You think it's bad now? Try to imagine if the Coronavirus spreads to Africa, India or other third world countries that are profoundly unequipped to deal with anything like this.
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@TyroneShoelaces
You are exactly right. It will devastate those countries and put other countries at further risk.
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Could there not be a more flimsy reason for the stock market to start correcting itself? Did the coronavirus spread to Wall Street? Many more people died today in the US from cigarettes, obesity, hypertension, alcoholism and suicide than they did from coronavirus. How about massive corporate debt, out- of-control personal debt, increasing stock-overvaluation from corporate tax cut-induced stock buybacks, progressive loss of manufacturing output, failed tariff war with China, more stock gains by tech companies that produce nothing (e.g., Facebook), etc. etc.?
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@JCX I disagree.
(i) We are talking about the CHANGE in the market over the last few days. The items JCX give are all arguable but they haven't substantially changed in the last few days.
(ii) For the moment the death toll from coronavirus is negligible. But there is the danger that the virus will spread and then have a significant negative effect on the world economy. A small probability of a disasterous outcome is hard to measure but its certainly no surprise that it has pushed the markets down, particularly those connected with China.
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@JCX
The markets would seem ripe for correction given the many reasons you cite, and if not for preemptive actions by the Fed probably would probably be well on their way towards fair value by now.
I'm of the belief that the epidemic in China is far worse than advertised, likely by an order of magnitude, and with a long asymptomatic latency and relatively high transmissibility, a global pandemic seems in the offing. Even if only 10% of affected patients require intensive care, medical systems in this country and elsewhere will become quickly overwhelmed. One can only imagine the horrors of what might transpire in less developed locales.
It's not a stretch to suggest that the business climate and consumer sentiment might be at least temporarily devastated in these circumstances. No amount of interest rate manipulation or currency production would effectively counteract such a scenario, especially when already teetering on the edge of solvency.
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Bond yield curve is sagging again. Could presage worldwide recession. If this continues.
Markets are affected. But Market Effects could also change the election.
I see the virus and the markets are having a powerful Electoral effect. (Trump is the least healthy and also elderly. He loves his rallies. Imagine if he got the virus....)
None of us can predict where this is ultimately going. But it’s we are watching an virus epidemic, an Impeachment which could now actually remove Trump (if Bolton testifies), and an election which may be massively affected by the virus (suddenly healthcare will come to the fore as well!).
Fasten your seatbelts: this is going to be One. Wild. Ride.
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We are all in this together. There’s a mass extinction event happening now. I hope we can pull it off in time.
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@Lilly The extinction or the survival?
Global stocks fall ... great news ... anything bad that happens to stock markets now diminishes Trump's chances for reelection.
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@A. Stanton
As does the Virus itself. He may have to curtail his rallies~!
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For Trump lovers or for Trump haters, or for anyone really, this coronavirus is NOT great news.
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Not to worry, Trump has a great and beautiful solution to keep America safe from the Coronavirus. He’ll outlaw it (“You have to ban it”), put a tariff on its import, and arrest anyone diagnosed with it (“There has to be some form of punishment”).
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@inkspot He will issue an Executive Order.
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@inkspot Exactly just order "take her out" to the disease. Heard that might work.
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@inkspot And then, call it a pre-existing condition so medical care can be denied.
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There is no wall high enough or faith strong enough to prevent this or another virus from coming in.
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Does anyone think Trump and his administration will tell us the truth about this virus and the impact on the public?
Will his administration adhere to scientific evidence and facts?
Will you be able to trust what Trump tells us?
No is the complete answer to these questions.
We are on our own because we sadly can’t trust this administration.
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@Charna ,
That all depends on how it will affect their stock portfolios. They have to check with their accountants first.
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@Charna ... will the Chinese government reveal the truth?
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@Charna
All the more reason he should GO!! Perhaps this is what the American people need to realize just how dangerous he is. (shame it has to be for such a serious reason). But "the world will BE a better place!"
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Sad as the disease is, a slowdown of the economy and a partial freeze on air travel could be good for the environment. The spend, spend, spend, consume, consume, consume driver of economic growth is suicidal at best and genocidal for all of earth in the ultimate scenario to which we seem to be heading. So, maybe the virus will slow consumption down enough to make the world managers take more penetrating look at what is happening with climate. A moratorium on travel one day a week, globally, could be helpful to restoring balance in air quality.
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@chichimax "maybe the virus will slow consumption down enough to make the world managers take more penetrating look at what is happening with climate."
I couldn't agree more. What I fear however, is that a slow down of consumption in China, and possibly in global trade might trigger a global recession, which we are long overdue for. The markets are already responding, and I'll be watching them along with the spread of the coronavirus.
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@Robert Selover
Better a reality check on consumption, along with more environmental destruction, than the death of tens of thousands of people.
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@plages I couldn't agree more. I am NOT hoping this gets worse, but I am waiting for whatever triggers a global recession, and this could be it.
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It seems that Chinese culture is so strongly wedded to live animal markets that they accept the risk of the contagion that emerges from these wilderness shows from time to time. Like the American embrace of a gun culture that occasionally results in mass shootings and drives continuous - if sporadically reported - gun violence, China appears to regard these occasional outbreaks as a frictional cost of obeisance to a more insidious cultural disease. And like America, the world's largest seller and black market distributor of arms and ammunition of all dimension, the Chinese export some of the damage from their social derangement. Odd parallels. Will these malignant behaviors be addressed in future trade agreements between the superpowers?
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with roll backs on safety being promulgated by the Trump administration, the meat in your supermarket isn't so safe either. Boy, tunnel vision.
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@Leslied1 May I point out that there is indeed a HUGE difference between American supermarkets and the Chinese live animal trade. As a long-time vegan I can easily avoid ALL the health risks associated with eating meat. But there's no way in which I can protect myself from this virus, should it spread more widely here. I believe what Scott Emery was saying is something I agree with 100%: the argument that some habit is a "cultural custom" that should be treated like a sacred cow and can't be changed is completely stupid and senseless. We would still have slavery, women couldn't vote or drive etc. if this argument had any validity.
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@Scott Emery
Great insights, Scott! Unfortunately, few seem motivated enough to even read this article, much less act to change the status quo.
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Let us hope that Trump has not staffed our governmental health agencies with the same hacks he had in his cabinet.
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Sorry, like other science-based agencies, the CDC suffered a brain drain after the Trumpistas took over. Remember the memo about words that could not be used? (WaPo, 12/15/17)
The global health sections of CDC's various disease-based centers are staffed by dedicated people who, along with their counterparts in other countries, face up to health challenges around the world, regardless of the political situation at home or on the ground. Many have stayed to keep in the battle. But some of the best are now to be found in universities, non-profits and international organizations such as WHO.
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Don’t worry—a few mean tweets from our dear leader and everything will be fine.
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No doubt he'll soon be announcing that this is a Chinese hoax, like climate change. We're doomed!
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