February’s data: How were we doing with employment before the coronavirus had real effects? Why did the AJSN say our latent demand for jobs dropped hundreds of thousands? See http://worksnewage.blogspot.com/2020/03/on-eve-of-coronavirus-crash-fine-month.html.
Interesting how many of the administration's solutions to help the market, help the economy, help their voters are simply modified versions of, or outright socialism………….
Something the Republicans decry, profess disdain for at every opportunity………..
Guess the bottom line is whose ox is being gored as to whether socialism is good or bad…………
Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican politics……...
3
No problem -- Trump supporters don't believe this virus even exists. They can just wish it away, because it's all a Democratic conspiracy:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/03/06/reality-check-trump-coronavirus-confusion-avlon-newday-vpx.cnn
1
This is all Trump's fault. If he had done something about the virus none of this would have happened.
Three Trillion in wealth hasn't been "destroyed." It has been collected by the sellers, who will now deploy it in other ways: hold/save; reinvest; spend and therefore stimulate.
Our virtual world has gone crazy; I sincerely hope that our real world stays reasonable...
1
Think the unthinkable.
You lose money on stocks and can’t get return on investment with bonds.
Anybody noticed? Too busy making America great again?
This would be a great time to observe that investors are getting wiped out every ten years like clockwork...
4
As the president hangs out in the White House.....
9
Tired of winning yet?
7
Let’s call this economic downturn the “Trump Slump”! How fitting.
11
What is needed right now is empathy, not panic.
I for one emphasize with the MAGA rally attendees who might already be exhibiting some symptoms.
I can only begin to imagine the inner turmoil they are coping with — self isolate and let the world know that they believe the hoax that the coastal elites are perpetrating, or, continue attending the MAGA rallies at the risk of infecting their fellow racists and Putin worshippers.
Let’s send them thoughts and prayers as what Pence has done in his entire political career so that they may continue attending every single MAGA rally — after all, Trump has never ever lied, not even once, unlike the fake news media like the failing New York Times.
10
Trumpcessoion!
He OWNS this. But, of course, he will concoct a way to blame it on Obama somehow.
8
"New York City told the federal government that a shortage of tests for the virus had “impeded our ability to beat back this epidemic."
"Told the federal government." Read: "Told Traitor Trump."
It's also time for The Times to start extrapolating the existing cases.
4
Wait. You bizarrely credited Biden on one little upswing a couple days ago but you’re not blaming him when it goes down?
1
Wait
Where is Biden to the rescue?
Autumn Leaf
November 6th.
3
Will the coronavirus end up saving America by sinking Trump*?
8
Live by the Market, Die by the Market. THIS is Trump’s Katrina.
Bye, Felicia.
9
And to the blatant lies and insne commentary coming out of the WH, the Trump sons, crazy GOP congressmen, and Fox News...
It has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DEMOCRATS OR OBAMA, or HILLARY, or the 2020 ELECTION, or NANCY PELOSI, or SECRET CONSPIRACY THEORIES. Please give up this trajectory; makes you all look like idiots.
Let the VP handle the virus...he’s doing a good job...and keep Trump off the TV. Follow the SCIENCE, not the tweets. He just makes everything worse!
6
Welcome to The United States of Dickensia.
7
Maybe this is a good time to remember some American heroes, especially now when cowardice hangs heavy and stale in the air. Like the man who worked on the first Flu vaccine , Jonah Salk. The same man who would create the polio vaccine. the television personality Ed Murrow said to Salk shortly after the onslaught of media attention. When Murrow asked him, "Who owns this patent?", Salk replied, "Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" They called Salk the miracle worker he literally changed the world for the better, the entire world. Compare him to some of the greedy dullards of today, those worshipped billionaires and sports stars who always want more, and think the works revolves around them. It’s time like this we see the difference between the wheat and the chafe.
It is also interesting to remember that Salks parents were European Jews the same people Hitler wiped out. What Hitler cost the world will never be calculated .
When you build a world which idolizes the pretty stupid people over the intelligent and the caring this is what you get.
12
Why does it surprise anyone that, when it comes to making big decisions, Trump is paralyzed with fear? If the problem is something he can't attack with a 11-year-old brat boy insult, he's, um, unable to perform.
9
@James
Actually you’re wrong.
Two of my husband’s fellow attorneys in NYC have children who are friends with two of the kids from New Rochelle who do have Coronavirus. They are now all in quarantine. Their office is being monitored and everyone is encouraged to work at home.
And I’m over 60 with underlying cancer.
So there’s that.
It does pay to be intelligent and take precautions rather than flippant and put others at risk. It’s likely that if you live in or near NYC the chances of getting Coronavirus are better than being electrocuted, winning the lottery or drowning.
Oh, and I don’t like cream soda. That’s a drink for very, very old people and tastes awful.
3
What is Trump doing to save the stock market? If my portfolio is diminished because Trump couldn't prevent a crash I am going to vote for the Democrat even if it's Bernie. (I am not a Russian Bot.)
5
No bailouts!!!!! Not a cent of taxpayer money to any company. We are told to save for emergencies so don't ask for a nickel. No socialism for the rich at the poor's expense.
10
It is baffling how poor Mr. Trump managed to go bankrupt 4 times!
4
If a falling stock market, faltering economy and pain for all us to flush this president out office; I'm in. The tragedy is no one thought the pain would come in the form of a contagion pandemic and people dying. This Republican administration can lie, twist and spin the Mueller Report and impeachment all they want. Broadly, people won't die. But turning this Covid-19 epidemic into a face-saving political boondoggle will. That should be something no Republican in or out of office can run away from. No get-out-of moral depravity free card here.
8
Things that keep a 89 yr old widow wide awake at night.
Listening to our leader tell everyone to go to work sick; (Nero plays golf...)
Appointment of another unqualified leader(V.P.) to lead the healthcare crisis:
(Pence prayed for 3 days about needle X changes.....)
Watching the resulting world economic implosion reduce my access to survival funds :
(Elderly are most at risk.....)
"Happy Days Are Here Again.."
7
This headline is ridiculous.
The Swiss cheese holes are lining up for a catastrophic failure, but not because of an 8 week old wannabe pandemic.
Maybe that’s the immediate issue, but where’s the conversation around decades of irresponsible GOP economic “policy” that is every latent cause to every recession since the 80s.
5
That was fun.
2
Trump is down the street, at the CDC.
'Please Mr. President, don't open that door!'
1
How is your 401k doing? Trump wants to know.
3
Ironic that the germophobe in chief may bet taken down by a germ (as in, the virus destroying the bragging point of Trump).
5
So fat cats are making money a bit slower. Boo hoo.
2
The big take away from the Fed's knee-jerk reaction telegraphs their awareness of just how fragile this economy really is. We saw it when they reversed course on increasing the interest rates and again when they began providing increased liquidity in the over night credit market. And now a stock market that realizes how little the Fed can do. This recovery is staring at the same economic reality that it faced in 2008. Most experts warned that the Fed was now out of bullets. We are all staring at a giant credit bubble. This pandemic may very well burst it. If the jobs report changes, an even greater panic will set in.
6
It sounds as though everyone is astutely on this but the good old USA.
7
Have no worries! The US govt stands fully behind the stock market. Socialism for the rich is our national motto - it doesnt matter if it takes trillions to bail it out - by any means necessary.
Here are all the things it doesn't care about: affordable health-care, low cost but quality higher-education, childcare for working and middle-class people. You are on our own and pull yourself up by your bootstraps!!
14
The Obama recovery has ended.
Now we are in the Trump market.
Pray for a new President.
11
If we can't scare the virus off with mean tweets, maybe we can build a wall around it. Trump has no leadership qualities or experiences to prepare him for this situation. And he will never be smart enough to step back and let the professionals practice their professions. Dismantling so much of the CDC and NIH because he didn't want to be paying people for "sitting around when we don't need them" is typically ignorant Trump. And now we pay the various prices associated with his shortcomings.
14
I have no fear the OMNISCIENT TRUMP will do the right thing . He knows more than all the health care and money care people of the world.
4
Coronavirus
noun, plural co·ro·na·vi·rus·es
Root latin corona = crown
any of various RNA-containing spherical viruses of the family Coronaviridae, contracted by revulsion to the "corona"
1
If you're one that believes in the presence of God in all of our daily affairs, consider this. Gropenfuerher Trump has just about broken every law that ordinarily that receives some kind of punishment. Being protected by his status as president, he has so far escaped punishment.
But this virus epidemic which promises to morph into a pandemic promises to become a punishment for Trump. We'll never know weather it was brought on by God, or soly by nature.
Nevertheless, the wild gyrations of the stock market, and other financial markets portend the setting for a severe recession, along with a severe falloff of hiring in the job market. All of these will more likely result in Trump's abrupt and severe fall from grace, as his electibility numbers abruptly and severely commensurately fall off as our nation falls into a profound recession.
Talk about a payback from God for the many sins blatantly committed by our arrogant commander in chief who believes himself beyond the reach of man's laws, but never considers Gods laws. Until losing the presidential election, becomes God;s way of saying in a thundering voice, You're fired!
8
As a Canadian, I’m taking an unfortunate pleasure in watching our neighbor struggling to put healthcare over their distorted version of capitalism.
10
Margaret
Shame on you.
1
So...the one thing Republicans and many Democrats can agree on is that shareholders (not all citizens) must be protected from any downside to risk and profit taking at all costs? What a world
5
Panic pandemic is the ultimate test of the world gone mad due to sins of those people in China who handled and consumed wild animals that hosted the Corona viruses, SARS and COVID-19. These viruses have jumped species into humans and this may not be the final viral threat that has emerged. Another few years there could be a new virus.
Nothing to fear but fear itself......FDR
Knowledge and Truth will set us free and there is a lot of misinformation and hype floating around.
2
Is anyone talking about easingTrump's tariffs? Seems to me the last thing we need when trade is collapsing under its own weight. Cutting interest rates isn't going to spur any productive demand at this point.
4
My friend Jeremiah, of that ilk, has made the following doleful prediction which I am bound to pass on.
Because of the reserve and trading currency status of the US Dollar, the free money policy pursued since the GFC has fuelled China’s accelerated growth. Thanks to the disease they have gifted to the world, the proposed major increase in US, and therefore international liquidity to counter the economic impact of coronavirus will further accelerate China’s growth and see her standing as a colossus over the world within fifteen years, and the United States humbled. Like the Roman gentry before them the wealthy will retreat to their country estates while their empire collapses around them.
9
It is likely that the virus will slow down in the summer and start back up next winter. At that point we will still will not have a vaccine and most people will not have immunity due to prior exposure. Furthermore we know that current anti-flu drugs barely show any efficacy even if given within 48 hours of exposure. Unless a new anti-corona virus drug shows real efficacy we are looking more and more like the situation in 1918 where a flu virus kiiled 60 million.
4
Jamie
The WHO just said on NBC news that we cannot count on the drop-off of corvid-19 viral activity in the summer
1
Not even close! There's no chance you or anyone you know will get the virus.
Huh? Really? This is anecdotal conjecture, not based on evidence, which makes it IRRESPONSIBLE. LUSTEN TO SCIENTISTS NOT THIS STUFF.
2
My opinion? The stock market is way overreacting because we have an idiot for a president.
Go check the stats on coronavirus. It mostly hits the elderly, those with immune deficiencies and those with compromised lungs. Also overworked medical professionals in Wuhan.
ps the median age of Italian deaths from coronavirus is 81.
16
@Margrethe I guess you are not in one of the 3 groups.
1
What a chance to make a fortune for someone who can time the market , while the boobs sell off, the smart boys are waiting for the moment to strike. The travel industry will take a beating , sure, but what does a virus mean to Amazon, Amazon will make a fortune delivering, and if one industry goes down another will boom, what does a virus mean to Verizon. Maybe American business will learn a hard lesson, send everything over to China and look what happens...well, what if we went to war with China, then what would happen, the more things made in America the better, open up plants in America , the price goes up, but if people need it they pay. This is a hard learning lesson for many greedy people.
So far 100,000 people in the world have come down with Corona, those are the known cases and don’t count probably a hundred thousand who had it and never even knew, or thought it was a cold, 54,000 have recovered about 3200 people have died , most very old or with severe health conditions. In hard hit South Korea not one person under 30 has died. Which makes this completely different from the infamous Spanish flu of 1918.
If it gets too bad, quarantines will control it. There have been relatively few cases in NYC so far which is actually amazing, most people who quarantined with Corona are doing just fine.
The warm humid weather of summer in NYC is hell on flu
I am all in at 22000. Fortune favors the bold and hates cowards
1
@Lonnie Yes indeed !! because all those people who deliver for amazon will gladly expose themselves so you can sit home and not spread the virus or catch it. So nice of you to order in.
@Lonnie Good comment.
@Lonnie Two countries near the equator have people with the coronavirus, heat didn't stop it.
DON'T WORRY!
Investors' holdings didn't just vaporize like a flatulent discharge in the wind... they have less buying power now, so the price of goods and services will fall accordingly to accommodate their adjusted buying power.
The ones who're up the creek without a paddle are those who borrowed at higher interests rates to play the market... sux to be them now.
5
@Skeptical Cynic The people up the creek are going to be the sames one up the creek in 2008. Restaurants will close, then other small business will loose because the people who worked in the restaurants wont have money to spend and so on and so forth. Yet our leader is talking about bailing out the travel industry. If this country has to shut down like China did the economy is toast. I don't hear anything about protecting the jobs of people who become sick.
2
@Karl
I will gladly, CHEERFULLY, take a massive hit to my portfolios if it serves to dislodge that tormented trump individual from YOUR White House.
For the long-term good of the U.S, the North American continent... indeed, the ENTIRE GLOBE.
And that's all there is to it.
3
Why do Republicans oppose a flat fee for credit card transactions? Both sellers and buyers are hurt by credit cards taking a percentage of every transaction.
CREDIT CARD COMPANIES take a PERCENTAGE of EVERY TRANSACTION, not a set fee.
Every time you buy something with a credit card, the banks bleed us. It costs the credit card company the same amount to record a million-dollar sale as a one-dollar sale, but they get a percentage. We need a law to make that a flat fee. The credit card fee system is a big reason for rising inequality. Banking and finance have 40% of the economy now. It used to be 10%. Every credit card swipe transfers money from the 99% to the 1%. Pay with cash when you can. The fee is on the seller, but it gets passed on to the buyer. MasterCard 2.6%. Visa 2.4%. Discover 2.3%. American Express 3.5%.
9
@JDPhillips
Do what I do. Pay off your cc balance every week. Watch where you spend. I never pay interest and get 1-5 points back. Don't spend money you don't have unless it's essential transportation, car or mortgage that enables you to work with a living and a goal of a long term investment. No fees.
2
@JDPhillips So don't use a credit card. Cash still talks.
Not favouring socialism myself, I am nonetheless bound to say that Bernie Sanders should not be criticised too much for his socialist views when socialism is alive and well at the Federal Reserve.
This proposal to buy assets other than government guaranteed debt is a classic case of the second part of the Privatise the Profits and Socialise the Losses policy of the free money economy that has been running of late. If the owners of debt proposed to be bought cannot find a buyer other than the Fed then perhaps they are expecting steep losses if not bankruptcy? And there are a lot of zombie companies propped up by free money that also need to go to the wall. Economic hygiene demands it.
13
@Pelasgus
The federal government taking a position in equities isn't socialism—it's state capitalism.
Unless it actually gives ordinary people an ownership stake in the economy, and some democratic control over that economy, it's hard to use the term socialism in good faith. Social democracy, maybe.
4
@Patrick Moore Corporate socialism
Why are the top headlines on most media sites the last few weeks about the stock market declining? I, personally, don't care a bit, as I know most Americans don't since none of us have been able to afford to fund a retirement account in more than a decade. The top story should be about the inept response by our government to this virus and how it's endangering our lives. We need real help out here, not alarmism about a relatively small drop in equity prices.
18
What do you expect?
Economy will contract massively. Cash is king.
8
@scientella I agree, but just two weeks ago one trader getting a lot of coverage was saying "cash is trash." We should prepare for a very rough ride.
The rich are getting richer. The rest of us?
18
As an aside, and indeed while almost trivial I think it is insightful, my daughter who lives in Seattle came back from a trip and her dog was the last in in kennel.
Which means they don't need anyone working there for the time being. Since no one is leaving town.
My wife and other daughter were planning a spring break trip to Seattle. But now, since my daughter in Seattle works for Microsoft and she is basically restricted to working at home AND there isn't much to do in the outside world, that was cancelled.
While there will be pent up demand to be met after all this passes, as it will, there will be hundreds of billions of dollars of lost sales and wages that are gone forever.
Well, except for whoever Trump wants to share our hard-earned tax dollars with.
But yeah, it's all Obama's fault.
38
Consumer spending is about 2/3'rds of GDP. This will have a big impact on consumer spending, GDP, and a huge flow on effect on businesses who have leveraged to the max to buy back shares. Banks may see bad debts rising similar to 2009.
20
@Joseph B The banks are already seeing that. The truth is that the economy is a fast freight train heading for curve and Trump is shoveling coal in as fast as he can hoping it stays on the rails till November. I dont think he is going to make it.
6
Yes, the market was due for a correction. However I think the panic associated with this virus and its impact on the market can be put at the feet of the incompetent leadership of the Trump administration, starting at the top. Lack of confidence is going to show up in the markets. The silence from the president's so-called allies in Congress is deafening. They know they took the wrong bet.
44
@ceg
Absolutely. The market is pricing in their total lack of confidence in this administration to handle this emerging crisis and Trump's Twitter finger and his bizarro statements on the virus aren't exactly helping.
This thing is going to magnify the profound personality disorder this guy has.
Well, this looks like the next, always inevitable recession, but from an unexpected quarter. Thanks to central bankers and their the irresponsible too-low-for too-long interest rates policy the ammunition locker is empty. An expansion of the free money policy will eventually see economic and political turmoil, and perhaps brown shirted marchers in the street.
This coronavirus epidemic has a cost and it is not in paper money, it is in lost output of valuable goods and services. The appropriate response is a rise in income tax to soak up the excess liquidity that will be now injected, with emphasis on the wealthy paying the most. Any other approach will see people eventually doing the electronic equivalent of pushing a wheelbarrow load of money to buy a loaf of bread.
21
There is no transparency in the stock markets.
Buyers of publicly traded stocks should be public knowledge.
These huge swings appear manipulative.
13
This is a direct judgement by Wall Street on Trump's competence and handling of a national emergency due to the Coronavirus. Why would anyone what him back for a second term after he has bumbled this so badly?
51
@Bruce1253
And your suggestions for improvement are?
@James
And your point is?
I'm going to step out on a limb and speculate that Bruce1253 isn't an elected official like our president. We're not supposed to be the ones who come up with the tough answers, although it's good if we do.
3
@James Don't re-elect him, duh. (His pronouncements about everything, including the Coronavirus, are what he wants reality to be, not what it is. He lives in a cocoon of lies.)
3
And here we are with massive borrowing and debt and interest payments on that debt that won't go down when the stock market goes down. We could have and should have paid down that debt when the stock market was good, not give tax breaks to billionaires. I recently paid down debt while the stock market was high and before this happened (I was having premonitions of a big correction).
Trump has put us in this financial crisis with his hubris and lack of foresight. He thought he was responsible for and took credit for the steady gains in the stock market, started by Obama. How about now? Will he take the blame he deserves or will he blame Obama.
Trump has declared multiple bankruptcies and in the mid 1990s we the American people bailed him out of nearly a billion in business debt. The question is, who will bail out America?
52
@Bear Lass
Amen. Historians will judge this to have been a massive missed opportunity exacerbated by a tax cut no one needed. The house of cards propped up by consumer spending is about to collapse as the coronavirus sends the economy into a deep freeze.
16
@Bear Lass "How about now? Will he take the blame he deserves or will he blame Obama."
I think we all know by now that Trump* will never take responsibility for any problems of his own making. He will blame the media, the Dems in general, Obama, maybe even Hillary.
3
@Bear Lass "Will he take the blame he deserves"
C'mon, we're talking about Trump here. What do you think?
What goes up, must go down. So, what's going down now will go up at some point. It's a matter of time. We just don't know when that will happen. Panicking won't help but people can't help themselves.
4
@whatsitallabout?
I am thinking that it is much better for the planet and humanity also applies to global human population as well. Mother Natures always has a way to drive population levels to the "correct" carrying capacity. And so it goes.
3
I'd like to see some in-depth reporting on the "Plunge Protection Team" controlled by the president and whether they're involved in more than just a "plunge". The markets have been over-valued for quite some time and, yes, I'm one of those people who think there's some monkeying with them going on since they defy all logic. The current drop is the first logical thing I've seen it do in recent years, yet it gained back most of the day's losses in the last 1/2 hr of trading today. Something smells.
20
@Nancy
The "monkeying" is the result of mass adoption of algorithmic trading, rather than direct manipulation.
Unless someone has come up with a way to herd the algos. Which is conceivable, I suppose, but seems unlikely.
1
Half the market panic is because it's trump who's "in charge."
62
Only half? Is Pence, the coronavirus czar in there too?
This correction is long overdue. Stock markets have been in a bubble since the 2017 Trump-Republican tax cut for millionaires, billionaires and their corporations-are-people-now overlords. The coronavirus has startled the world back to reality, and reality is bleak right now. Vote blue no matter who in November like your lives and livelihoods depend on it, because they do!
83
I'm shocked. Trump's lies aren't working to calm the market?
80
@Bmcg ~
According to FOX and Sean and Rush, it's only the lies of the NYT and WaPo and MSDNC [Trump must think he's REALLY clever with that one] and ... pick a target .. who are lying and causing it.
If only we did EVERYTHING here, then how the markets around the world are also reacting wouldn't affect us.
And now ... back to the REAL news. Hunter Biden's impending charges.
An open letter to Republicans who chug the "the economy is great" Trump nonsense....
Dear Senate Republicans,
We know you will continue sitting there silently if Trump tries to blame the Dow plunge on Obama. Failure to be the Constitutional check to Trump's chaos makes the Blue Tsunami larger every day. It that will dwarf the 2018 Blue Wave which swept Republicans from the House. Time to start circulating resumes for new work in January 2021.
signed,
a growing majority of We The People
89
There are two kinds of GOP supporters:
those who don't own stocks
those who can short stocks
32
@petew Don't forget those of inferior DNA
stock!
1
Not panicking now is a key to getting through this.
The s/p seems to have strong support at around 2800. If it breaks through that floor, then I would say it's worth revisiting. But otherwise I would stay the course and not sell out, unless you need the cash in the near future. I think we will be back to 32-3300 by years end.
3
@idealistjam The stock market isn't the economy. Panic for real people who can't work from home and can't go to work to earn wages is coming. It has already happened in China.
2
The Trumpian/Mnuchins instincts & hunches lead them to bail out the mega industries and corporations that may take a hit,
in the midst of an ill-conceived trade war that cost consumers billions—both paying for those tariffs & bailing out the mega-rich farm conglomerates. For votes.
While giving a trillion-dollar tax cut to the gilded wealthy & adding the same debt to be paid back, passed on to workers.
Imagine a credit card that someone else spends on & you have to pay for? Whatever happened to those soybean harvests China never bought? In previous bailouts, it seemed to save jobs/industries & trickled down.
Any current bailout should go to no-cost healthcare for the sick, high support for health care workers, help for the stricken.
ISOLATION CLINICS need to be set up in every community. We don't want our emergency rooms infected. Free clinics.
No hospital bills & family support grants for poor & middle-class families to cover quarantine costs and loss of income should be the focus of any bail out this time.
Immigrants and undocumented residents need to get free and no restrictions access to our isolated special clinic centers. No questions asked.
Trump only cares about getting reelected. Milk that.
Mar-a-Lago & Trump tourist resorts should be quarantined from doing business and receiving guests. Set an example. He should cancel all rallies for at least three months. He can still call into FOX News.
Trump will ask for a bailout for hotels & resort losses.
37
Eric Rosengren of the Federal Reserve Bank is talking about the FRB buying stocks ? That’s how sturdy the economy is ???? A flu virus and they are going to print money to buy stocks ????
Hyperinflation. It will wipe out the government debt problem too.
25
@David Martin
Interestingly enough, hyperinflation would wipe out the student debt problem as well. And, to some extent (read: mortgaged value), the overvaluation of real property.
2
Now that the economy is tanking, because Trump's Administration lacks a credible response to the coronavirus, Republicans can no longer repeat Trump's silly 'the economy is good' political remark.
Kindly note that Republicans and Trump have been making a claim that the economy is great so ignore Trump's many faults. With the Dow in free fall, they'll need to find a new way to try a blind eye to Trump's failures.
Trump will probably try to blame this drop in the Dow on Obama. His narcissism doesn't let him take responsibility for any White House failure. So sad.
33
@Question Everything
He's already blaming it on Obama. He said so just the other day. He is shameless. And so are his GOP enablers.
3
A lot of people are calling this the Trump Slump.
Trump Slump. Trump Slump. Trump Slump.
And by a lot of people, I mean me.
If "a lot of people" before a lie is okay for Trump... well why not everyone else?
Welcome to the Orwellian world Trump and his enabling Congressional Republicans and mindless loyalists have brought us all.
VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO
54
@Question Everything Trump's Katrina.
1
OK- conspiracy theory...kills mostly older people, so social security pays out less, can't have a war, need the young people to work and pay taxes, we need less older people and we are in peak baby boomer retirement age, Coronavirus takes care of so many problems, so why don't they just let assisted suicide be legal, or is that morally reprehensible...I'm old by the way....meanwhile this choice between 2 old white men is not exactly an earthshattering choice, but...
9
@Jane Doole
Your reasoning is exactly why we need a coronavirus with a 50% mortality rate. Solves all economic and climate change problems at once. We won't have much carbon dioxide production if world population reverts to 5 billion on first round of infection. Greta Thunberg would be smirking from her Swedish village 24/7.
I hate to say this because its at the expense of COVID-19 victims; but Trump, along with his blindly loyal GOP and base, totally deserves this. The problem is, the rest of us REAL AMERICANS don't.
25
I love living in NZ - Trump take note of what the Guardians of our National Superannuation fund say, because of their WISE decisions. Trump should never have done away with the controls on the sharemarket and financial sector, as your government debt is so high there is no wriggle room to bail out big business. Trump is a careless leader with no foresight.
https://www.nzsuperfund.nz/news-media/nz-super-fund-describes-global-market-challenging
37
Most of the public concerned and needing guidance and truth.
Trump: FAKE EVERYTHING.
21
All I see is a great buying opportunity...
@George
Then buy! who is holding you...
2
@George
not yet George.
first we have to survive the second wave of virus coming this fall/winter...
diamond hands
And paper towel roll tossing will not work here either...
28
Panic pandemic is causing stocks to fall. For the day after super Tuesday on Wednesday, there was hope that the socialist democrat, Bernie will never be the nominee of the Democratic party. Panic selling last week was due to unjustified anxiety about Corona virus spread and this week it is due to uncertainty among the democrats whether they have any chance at all to replace Trump with their nominee. The pandemic of Trump derangement syndrome is frustrating those who see gloom and doom if Trump is reelected after all attempts to remove him from office have failed miserably.
The new wave of worry hitting Wall street will sink those who sell at a loss and they deserve to, because they have lost faith in the stock market and have already made a large profit. The volatility will not hurt those who take a long term view and hope that they are not left holding the bag. At the same time this a golden opportunity for those who have cash in hand to buy good dividend stocks of established large corporations at bargain prices.
With an astounding low employment and new Jobs in February and the low interest rates, the economy is basically strong and extended rebound should be taking place in the near future when we realize that Corona infections are no big deal but a short term dip. Trump's first term presidency will historically remain the best state of the Union while everything not being hunky dory for every American.
2
@Girish Kotwal Did you ever realize that most Trump supporters still like to talk about the future and not actual achievements. Projection is one of the main virtues of a conman. Mr.Trump deserves respect for keeping that up for now >3 years without being called to reality by the GOP or anyone else - that string of luck seems to end with his public demonstration of complete incompetence dealing with a health threat to the very people who elected him. More projections do not change that.
@Girish Kotwal Look to China and other areas of the world where the Coronovirus is rampant to see what awaits us. The real TDS is of supporters of Trump, who are deranged in thinking that anything he does is for them.
I come across your very frequent and always laudatory posts about Trump in the comment sections of various Times’ articles, and, for the life of me, cannot figure out how you come up with your opinions. Are you real or manufactured?
1
Notice for market losses we get percentages. For market gains they use the actual numbers.
15
Chances are that market turmoil will cease.
First, CDC estimates that the annual deaths in the U.S. from influenza over the nine seasons ending with 2018-2019 was 37,500. Hardly anyone outside of the health professions notices. Second, a story in today's Washington Post suggest that Covid-19 may be no worse, and less contagious, than the other strains of flu behind those nine years of data.
Washington Post as the afternoon of 6 March: “As of Friday afternoon, the United States had 14 deaths among 240 cases, a rate of 5.8 percent. But testing has been slow in the U.S., and as it becomes more widespread the rate will plummet. Your denominator is going to explode, which will push the case fatality rate down. But it will also push the number of affected persons and communities up,” said Kathleen Jordan, vice president and chief medical officer of Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco.”
Fourteen deaths within an average loss of 37,500?
Today is indeed brutal. I’ll guess the market will reverse by Wednesday, March 11.
@Daniel P. Doyle if it ceases, do you think we will get a NYtimes infographic saying market up x percent in green like we get when it's in the red?
1
As this virus spreads unabated throughout the country and the people stop going out in public economic activity will dry up. I predict the market will continue to slide for months. Because this is just getting started. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
21
@Daniel P. Doyle
We have just seen the very start of a world epidemic.
Many people will need healthcare, we have clinics that need to be built, contingencies, supplies, loss of work.
Parents/school children. No retail business will be unscathed. Everything we face is going to cost us dearly. You should advocate free clinics and take a volunteer 2% cut in your market positions to support general health.
Save some money to help close friends and family pay for healthcare, family losses, and funerals.
Think of dominoes. Schools, businesses, events, the travel industry, business conferences, canceled vacations, cautious purchasing, workplaces quarantined...etc., etc.
Trump's trade war with China and tax cuts for the rich stretched the limits already. We don't have reserves. The coronavirus was just a straw, the Trump plastic economy was going to crash sooner or later.
We had a 3% growth and 2.5% inflation. Mega-rich people had far and away more in profit-taking.
Trump will ask for a bill to bailout hotel and resort businesses for vacancies due to limited/restricted travel.
9
What is Trump not getting? While he is not responsible for the Coronavirus,
he is responsible for:
Cutting all the funding for pandemic planning,
Cutting virus and science research,
Stockpiling necessary medical supplies and equipment,
Ordering testing kits in January or using those provided by the WHO.
Having an overall strategy for communicating with state governments, the medical community and citizens current,factual and meaningful information.
Lying
Tweeting incorrect information
Being on top of the facts and relaying them correctly
Providing reassurance, reliability and responsibility to the American people
Remaining in DC and overseeing the Coronavirus response rather than fund raising and golfing at Mar-a-Lago.
And the list goes on.
The catastrophic response to the Coronavirus has put everyone in physical, emotion and economic danger.
What doesn’t he get? This is not the flu.There is no vaccine. There is no cure.
54
And let’s not forget that five minutes after this crisis (hopefully) passes it will be back to business as usual with little or no foresight about preparing for the next (inevitable) outbreak. So long as the blessed market recovers we can keep cutting prep. 🙄
17
@It’s About Time
Danger? You had more danger today getting out of bed and eating breakfast than from coronavirus. That's right, more people died today slipping and falling out of bed or choking on breakfast than died from coronavirus. Also, many more people will win lotteries today. And yes, there is no vaccine. But flu vaccine does not protect against all winter viral infections, just a small sliver of them. Life is full of danger, and right now total coronavirus deaths are dwarfed worldwide by people who drowned or were electrocuted last year. Hysteria is for those who do not understand the math of risk. Over the next year, your risk of death in an auto accident is orders of magnitude higher than from coronavirus. Relax, have a cream soda.
2
@James Yes. It's all about the math of risk, which is why we have seat-belt laws and yak-traks for our boots and flu vaccines, all of which reduce our risk. Now comes coronavirus, a nasty type of infection that causes SARS and MERS, and we find that we haven't prepared for the risk. Yes, we don't know yet how bad it can get, but so far this coronavirus has shown it infects easily and can kill vulnerable people, mostly older. So what happens if we don't contain it? What happens if we cut research budgets and pandemic units to fight it? (which trump did) What happens if we fail to understand it, and it mutates? Maybe it's grandma in the crosshairs this year, but it could be five-year old children next year. Remember the 2009 H1N1 epidemic? Eighty percent of deaths were in people younger than 65. That could happen with coronavirus. Viruses are wily, scary infections. It's our duty as a society to use our knowledge and effort to fight this, not scoff. Americans are right to be on edge, especially when trump is such an incompetent ignoramus who worries more about his precious stock market than lives and spews lies and misinformation.
4
With the "stable genius" in charge, he has a "gut feeling" the market will recover.
Of course he knows nothing about coronavirus or the stock market, so you will have to just accept that.
32
The Times is now reporting: "The Federal Reserve may need to buy assets other than government bonds to counter the next downturn, a Fed official said Friday, a dramatic suggestion meant to bolster the central bank’s increasingly depleted tool kit for fighting a downturn."
It sounds like the our nation's central bank is proposing to use its printing press to shore up a collapsing stock market.
Am I the only one who finds this frightening? Whatever happened to the idea of the business cycle?
As of 3:50 PM ET, the S&P 500 is still up over 6% during the past twelve months. It used to be that a 6% annual growth in capital (never mind dividends) wasn't all that bad!
This is socialism for the investor class and crumbs for everyone else.
63
You'd think Trump would want to get a handle on coronavirus if not to ensure the health of the people he was elected to lead, at least to shore up the stock market which seems to be the only measure he cares about.
28
@dan Trump is incapable of strategic thinking on any level and as far as having empathy for anyone, well, it's hard for someone without a soul to have empathy.
25
@dan Let's face it: Trump is pinning his re-election hopes on the economy - in his eyes, it had better be booming again when November rolls around!
5
Yet, even with the corona virus death and illness tolls, my avid Trump supporting friend is adamant that the virus is practically non-existent and there is a wide gap of deaths from the flu compared to the extremely low danger of the corona virus.
He believes that the news outlets are printing false information to cause a drop in the stock markets and, primarily to hurt Trump.
His source of this knowledge — Rush Limbaugh and Facebook memes.
Strong jobs report? The 12 month average unadjusted earnings increase is only 3%. The 12 month average inflation rate is 2.5%. That’s only a net increase of .5% wage growth.
The news tells us it’s raining, but I think there’s too much ammonia and discoloration in there for that to be rain water...
35
Just wait until testing ramps up to full speed. Once those numbers come out we'll have a look at a real market crash; that is, if it's not pre-empted. Baby boomers who are the most invested in equities cannot afford a repeat of 2008 since they're 12 years older. The only safe assets are gold and USD.
5
@Cato
I would expect the opposite of what you’ve assumed. For older retirees.
Best to have an investment % in stocks, bonds and cash. Better not to be buying or selling or changing your allocation in this midst of a crisis.
Have your allocation plan and stick with it. Don’t panic. Sit tight. Remain calm.
4
@Cato
I think the same thing was said by many in 2008: "I'll never go back to stocks." Sorry you missed the 400% gain. I am a contrarian on testing. The more positive tests you have, the more it shows the LOW mortality of this thing. My bet is that China has well over a million positive people, so the effective death rate is much lower than stated. Even our own CDC is saying the virus was present in Washington for weeks, so we are missing a big denominator number.
1
Everyone faces danger from the corona virus. We everyday citizens face threats to our very lives. The 1% face threats to their portfolios. But losing 6% of $3,000,000,000 is small potatoes next to losing your life, and those people can also effectively isolate and protect themselves from the actual virus. As usual, the 1% takes care of itself. The rest of us? We're on our own.
29
@larry bennett
"We're on our own." I believe that is called adulthood and personal responsibility. It is a trait most Americans cherished until the late 20th century when many became soft doughy devotees of the nanny state. Do you think a western pioneer gave two cents for what others could do for them? Grow up and be a man.
Unless your health is impaired already, your life isn't really in danger.
James
So, the United States of America, the richest country in the world, should not have an effective public health system, or strong pandemic preparedness and response capability? That would make us “soft”?
Seriously?
All of this just shows you how dependant the USA is on Chinese imports. Don't forget folks that USA still produces stuff and buy made in the USA. NZ exports but our government debt is much healthier than USA so our government has more wriggle room for Corporate Welfare to prop up those affected.
Also, our government National Superannuation fund invests mainly in NZ start up businesses that are privately owned and not on the stock market. Also our retirement National Superannuation fund investments have to be ethical so our government won't be investing in lots of stuff globally. The NZ sharemarket is down slightly but that's in companies that import and where supply and demand can't be met.
10
Fed rate cuts could not solve the problems with supply. Creating more demands while the supply is in shortage could not solve any issue.
11
The Fed has very little role to play here. The virus is leading to a temporary collapse of consumption and consumer demand for everything except hand sanitizer. The Fed is not responsible for stimulating the economy. If economic stimulus is needed, it needs to come from Congress. Congress should send taxpayers a $1,000 bonus refund check if they want to stimulate short term consumption. The Fed interest rate has nothing to do with stimulating activity among average consumers and their day-to-day spending!
23
@Andy ...a $1,000 bonus check would do little or nothing (even in the short term)...maybe pay a few bills, but not really "stimulate short term consumption"...
3
@Jim $1000 might not be a whole lot to you or me, but it would certainly be appreciated, and likely quickly spent by the working class an provide some security in a society where 40 percent of adults can’t come up with $400 to pay for an emergency. If all of the 140 million taxpayers in the US got and spent a $1000 tax grant, that would be an extra $140B injected directly into the consumer economy in a short period. That would be so much more effective than the Fed buying $140B of assets from banks or lending $140B in debt that will then weigh on balance sheets.
9
It's not fear; it is reality kicking in; some people have foresight.
30
What do we need for the Markets to stabilize? Calm Leadership. What have we gotten? Panic rate cuts by the Fed and Our President more concerned with making sure that he's not blamed than he is in containing the coronavirus.
56
“Against this backdrop, we should prepare for a short-term but severe global recession,” Mr. Green said.
Well, today the market is preparing.
21
“prepare for a short-term but severe global recession,”
Well, the recession may be “short-term” for some. But combined with the virus, it may mean recession effects for much longer for those who have lost time and money working, while being smacked with huge medical bills.
Trump may imagine he’s reassuring the airlines and cruise lines and other corporate entities, but failure to address the coming woes of ordinary citizens is inexcusable. Their suffering will be very real. And their sense of despair will ripple effects, like PTSD due to the virus and its effects on them.
It is all the more vital that we must vote Trump out this November.
39
@TheraP
That's IF we have an election. I can see Trump declaring a state of emergency and canceling it due to "safety" concerns. I wouldn't put it past him. Wouldn't put anything past him.
43
Except there is no statutory or consitutional basis to "cancel" the elections. Even Lincold in the midst of a civll war chose not to attempt some type of declaration of martial law to do that. As much as I fear Trump and his army of sycophants, there must be some point where even they would not fold on this point.
7
It’s amusing that you wrote that and baffling if you actually believe it. Trumpism has no bottom. If he thinks of canceling the election he will do it. The only thing stopping him is his lack of imagination. There is no depth to which he won’t sink and his minions won’t gleefully cheer it on. You think he’s hit bottom and he still has a shovel in his tiny tiny hands.
16
from what I've been reading around the world, no nation has any confidence in their governments taking strong decisive leadership in all this and containing the coronavirus. Where is the leadership in the world on this pandemic. Globalism and open borders are bad, at this moment in time.
2
Nobody knows the real number of jobs created, and having jobs created does not mean the jobs are filled with people. When the report says ‘created in February’ what that means is ‘published by corporate.’ Labor Statistics knows only jobs as reported by the States and they by local business services units; and remember, the States cannot accurately report jobs created until, minimum, one year has passed and, minimum, 3 quarters of wages have passed. Until such time a job creation report mostly is wishful thinking or just outright fakery.
12
So if the price of oil had plummeted, trips are being cancelled , and people are not spending as much, then why is:
1. The price of oil still very high
2. Airlines are not lowering their prices
3. Stores are not lowering their prices
13
@Majortrout because, you and I are just cash cows for them. When real market mechanics were working is long time into the past.
9
@Lars W
"Real market mechanics working" means exactly this kind of boom-bust cycle.
And the more it's "real" and "working" without intervention, the more severe and prolonged the crises.
1
@Majortrout Oil has declined below $40 bbl which is below the level at which US producers can operate at a profit. Airlines are cutting the number of flights, as long as they can put people on the planes they fly, why would they lower prices beyond the point of profitability? Stores have their prices at the lowest point at which they can make money right now. Lowering prices = fire sale as going out of business.
1
"The downdraft already reflects a growing recognition that the Federal Reserve on its own will not be able to offset drags on the economy from the spreading coronavirus."
When insecurity causes consumers to be reluctant to consume, when people are afraid to venture outside their homes, when kids cannot go to school, when family members fear for the well-being of their grandparents, shouldn't it be obvious that interest rate reductions are not an effective panacea?
Aren't "economists" who blithely expound their theories ignorant of the behavior of people, which is the principal driver of the economy?
14
@James K Griffin
Who is afraid to go outside of their homes? Do we have "A Quiet Place" aliens amongst us now? I hope you are safe in your backyard bunker, because it is a great time to travel and pick up stock bargains.
James
In the above comment I believe James Griffin meant people are being afraid to venture outside to socialize, eat out, go to concerts, go to sporting events, shop, go to the movies, etc
Today health officials are actually saying that exactly this kind of social distancing by people in the 60 year old and older age groups should be considered.
This is all on Trump.
President Obama weathered Ebola, Zika, Avian Flu, etc, but had no Stock Market collapse.
The reason is because President Obama was prepared, told the truth, and presented himself as the calming adult in the room.
Trump? Not so much.
177
@Brandon - Yeah, but Trump has a hunch that infections will be low - because there are few test kits so there can’t be a diagnosis. Problem solved.
17
@Brandon ~
Exactly true. If Trump hadn't been documented as a liar from Day 1, and addressed the problems in ramping up directly, people would be a whole lot happier.
Now indeed, the markets around the world have also been hammered, but we are the biggest domino in the row.
16
@Brandon The Obama administration started groups in the US and other parts of the world to address such issues as pandemics and guess who disbanded most of the groups. The stable genius must have interesting reasons for that.
12
Just want to be sure I have this right:
Single-payer healthcare and college debt relief are examples of socialism.
Farm subsidies and tax breaks for the airlines are NOT.
This country disgusts me.
159
It is a -global- pandemic. It crosses borders, it crosses industries, if affects "socialist" and capitalist countries the same... I don't think the markets are 'over-reacting'. It is unclear right now if the coronavirus is 'ramping up'; is 'being contained'; or is 'fading out'... although the last possibility appears to be fabulist rantings at this time.
The markets appear to be seeking safe havens when confronting a threat that reaches everywhere - the reaction selling maybe seems extreme, or 'panicky', but there's not a lot of places the coronavirus doesn't seem able to reach, and not a lot of economic sectors that will be unaffected.
Global agencies, able to reach across borders and take fast action would be an effective way to handle this.. border walls won't work. But that doesn't seem to be the way our current world's leaders are taking us. Maybe the coronavirus, or the next pandemic after, will take care of them, too.
9
@Jim Brokaw The US market has been overvalued and looks like it was looking for an excuse to "correct" and found it. My portfolio started to tank in January, really tanked in February, and I'm down about 11% so far this year. Don't plan on me jumping off a roof tho. The most I've done is cancel a vacation - can't afford it right now, both because of money and the likelihood of coronavirus slamming my planned activities. I'll save my panic for later and just enjoy watching Trump sweat for a while.
26
Thank you Wall Street keeping going till this administration dies something about the hoax.
Such a bad job was done by everyone in charge that the last chance may be to literally put the whole country in a 14 day quarantine except for army , medical staff , police, fire department, etc, and a do a restart .
Two weeks will allow us to get a handle on this , while we work on test kits.
As crazy as it sounds this might work, certainly if you don’t have it you will not get it in quarantine .
Until Donald Trump takes direct action the stocks go down so thank you Wall Street.
We can watch the NCAA tournament while we are in quarantine , the tournament played in empty stadiums of course.
By April and the warm weather we come out , with a better game plan and the hope that the virus fades and maybe by that time do will have come up with the perfect way to fight it.
1
@Lonnie
"I was in the #SARS epidemic when the virus spread in snowy Beijing and tropical Hanoi. There is no serious evidence #SARCoV2 is more temp-Sens. BUT 2 things change as NoHemisph heads to summer: open windows and longer days which = more UV light, killing viruses."
3:42 PM · Mar 5, 2020
"The @WHO said today 'there's no reason to believe this virus would behave differently in different temperatures," but they're looking forward to getting more data as seasons change.'
https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1235667084283174912
4
@Lonnie Virus that decline in warm weather come back when the temperature declines again.
2
Wait a minute, S&P 500. Hold your horses, Dow Jones Industrial Average. Listen up, Nasdaq:
trump has spoken:
7/21/16: “I am your voice. I alone can fix it.”
11/7/17: "Stock market hit yet another all-time record high yesterday. There is great confidence in the moves that my Administration is making”
2/24/20: the "stock market is starting to look very good to me"
2/26/20: “I really think the stock market is something I know a lot about”
As trump noted, he, and he alone, is the expert on everything, and as he states, the market is looking very good to trump.
Thus, all trump followers, put your money where his mouth is.
Bet your houses, 401k's, and money market funds on the market, now. And, trust in your leader, trump, who knows all things, especially how the market will do.
28
@Ed
My favorite: Feb 25, 2020:
"Trump told business leaders stocks will jump higher if he is re-elected, but “if I don’t win you’re going to see a crash like you’ve never seen before.”
india trip
3
The news is: the coronavirus Covid-19 is spreading here, and the Trump administration seems more focused on the health and well-being of the economy than the health and well-being of the public. With their major misstep in only having 75,000 test kits not the 1 million promised by Vice President Pence, it means many who have the virus will go untested and it will continue to spread it causing further damage to our consumer-driven economy. This is a national emergency ton the verge of a national tragedy hat demands a leader who cares about others as much as himself. Over and over again, Donald Trump's blatant narcissism with its attendant lack of empathy has kept him from being that leader. The devastating consequences are now becoming apparent to all who've chosen to ignore it before while the economy was serving the rich and powerful.
22
@Paul Wortman Pretty sure his standard 35% hard-core supporters aren't going to let this change their mind either. They'll believe whatever he tells them to believe.
6
Either the Iranian variant that has made its way to New York is the most fatal or Iran is under reporting the number of infections.
5
Fear not! The Trump administration now has found a good use for the Coronavirus!
Tax deferments for their favorite lobbyists and friend CEOs. Like for airlines, for the cruise industry. How quickly the Federal government bows to help!
But free healthcare, paying copays, ensuring workers will have their positions available if they have to skip work, paid sick time, paid testing, ... Crickets!
What a disgrace this administration is!!!
66
The Trump Slump will drive a lot of moderates who held their noses and voted for Trump and Republicans to finally turn on them. Most people vote their self interests. Death from an ill handled disease and a declining stock market is a bell for whom tolls Trump.
23
Funny how the GOP loves socialism if it involves paying off their base of supporters.
Farmers get bailed out, but they somehow rationalize it as not being socialism.
Now we're going to bail out the airlines [how about Trump hotels]. Seems like the GOP is not doing what they're saying.
29
@galtsgultch Don't forget handing out cut-rate leases of public lands to ranchers and miners. Western ranchers think the government should GIVE them federal land owned by all taxpayers. How is that not welfare? The GOP is about old cronies taking care of themselves and each other. I gave up on them having a rational economic philosophy a long time ago.
11
What USA seems to be forgetting is that USA has many enemy nations around the world who are two faced people. Trump is not diplomatic so his enemies for looking for any weakness to exploit in the USA economy. The USA weakness is it's lack of free health care and hospitals. Another weakness is the private medical insurance schemes instead of universal health care. Joe Public has their private insurance schemes rapped up in the USA sharemarket. USA sharemarket is wrapped up in retirement shares and healthcare shares.
1
It's almost like the money folks have no confidence whatsoever in the current administration managing this crisis. If there ever was a president and administration not up to this.... that's what the money folks are thinking.
23
With regard to handling cash, if people knew of all of the bacteria and viruses that are on virtually every bill we handle every day nobody would want to touch them
2
I'm sure that China knows that if it sinks the USA stock market that is equivalent to sinking the Trump government during election year. China can take a hit as the government owns everything and can buy up or sell all the Chinese stocks. China is a puppet master at manipulation in all aspects of government and citizen control.
2
The worst of it is that every expert civil servant in government who is trying to respond to this pandemic must adjust and compromise their skills and experience so as not to anger the president.
History will record that the Trump adimistration's incompetence was responsible for enhancing the spread of this virus.
14
I'm waiting for the President to find a way to blame this all on Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
17
@Jeffrey Gillespie I’m surprised he hasn’t claimed that Obama set this all up in an effort to undermine him.
Wait.
Why all the woe?
Poodle Powell heeded his master's voice and dropped interest rates,
thereby curing Car Owner virus.
Crazy Uncle Joe has surged ahead of Bernie McGovern.
None of the XX chromosomed politicians remain viable on the Democratic side.
With overseas travel curtailed by the Car Owner virus, domestic spending should catapult.
And the Trump economic miracle has produced 3,204,443,992 jobs last month.
Happy days!!
And OIL PRICES are DOWN!!
3
How can a president with a record of such blatant dishonesty assure a nation that the spread of the virus will be curtailed? By keeping his mouth shut and suspending his Twitter account for the duration.
14
The number of confirmed cases outside of China has been doubling every four days for the past month or so. If this continues, there could be 20 million by the middle of April.
5
@John
I don’t think this is factually correct, and is potentially fear monger at it’s worst.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
World wide there are/have been ~100k cases in total. As of Feb 11, there were ~50k cases reported. (I’m guessing a significant number of unreported cases with minimal symptoms, one thing DjT was right about, but articulated it poorly)
So that is not a double ing every for day, but rather a doubling over almost a month, a significant statistical difference. It pays to be accurate!
1
@Tony Ickes I believe the reason it has not exploded yet is that China's quarantining has slowed its growth in China. The more important question is - what is the growth outside of China? My belief is that the rate is higher than 2x each month. I have not done the math, but that is what my recollections of infections outside of China tell me. If you have contrary evidence, please inform.
Insiders who are analysts at Wall St need to check if Chinese government sold off large amounts of shares before the coronavirus virus was notified to the world. It's not being paranoid and is just one aspect in the process of elimination to see if this was deliberately manufactured virus or an accidental virus.
I think I read somewhere that the Saudis sold off lots of shares before 9/11.
4
@CK -- I 'read someplace' that aliens with flying saucers spread it as a prelude to invasion... and in addition to walls, we need to be building roofs and screens to keep them out. I doubt the people seeking profits from the coronavirus threat will all be Chinese, and looking specifically in that direction seems motivated by factors other than reasoned rational thought. You might examine your motivations for considering such theories, since they seem to be unsupported by visible facts.
8
This theory is bunk. If China was developing a bioweapon, do you seriously think they would choose to develop a strain of influenza which isn't all that deadly, and for which a vaccine could be found relatively quickly?
Questioning the origins like that isn't conscientious, it's paranoia.
4
One of the President's advisors viewed the precipitous drop in the market due to covid-19 through the rose colored glasses of the ever optimistic investor. He said this might be a good time to jump into the market and buy in low. The silver lining to any bad news for people of this ilk, there's money to be made if you pick the right bargains. Sound advise or hyperbole? Only the market knows.
1
The markets were very overvalued. If the situation gets worse, and it seems it will be, it will drop further. I was quite lucky because a couple weeks ago a friend of mine shared with me a video analysis on the valuation of US market and the potential impact of the coronavirus. After I watched it, I sold my stocks. It was in European Spanish but subtitled. He definitely nailed it. The YT channel is Invernomics. Saved me quite a few bucks.
5
If there's anyone to blame (and Trump isn't it) it's China for keeping this thing a secret and trying to hide it from the rest of the world until it was too late. There is NOTHING we can do right now as far as vaccines are concerned since they are still being worked on, and some clinical trials are on the way.
Overreacting is another thing. People need to realize that far more deaths have occurred in our country from the flu and pneumonia than the coronavirus.
A vaccine will be coming. And numerous treatments are also being tested by a long list of pharma/biotech companies right now.
CALM DOWN.
3
@Tamar While it did start in China, there are plenty of things Trump and his administration have handled extremely poorly. There should have been higher testing/quarantining at airports right when the virus first broke. He's cut the CDC budget, and put a man in charge who didn't believe in needle exchanges, and is downplaying the virus entirely in hopes that the stock market will bounce back. We probably have double or triple the amount of cases that are currently confirmed.
34
I recommend giving this advice to Trump. Be sure to shout, just as you have here.
4
@Tamar The death rate from this is at least 10x the flu (looks like 30x from current statistics where 101,800 confirmed cases and 3,460 deaths). Second, unlike the flu, this appears to be spread by individuals who show no symptoms. This makes it more deadly, as we cannot contain it the same way that people with the flu can stay home while they are symptomatic. No need to panic, but your statements are both untrue and misleading.
1
* Economists on Wall Street have slashed growth forecasts for this year.
* The economy will slip into recession.
* Fed will be unlikely to offset that damage on its own.
12
The stock market is tied to the economy, and the economy is suffering because of the damage. To fix the stock market it is essential to eradicate coronavirus, and eliminate the impact on the economy. Trump is not helping. For example, his suggestion that people with light symptoms might go to work. Trump is part of the problem. A Trump program proposal, hypothetically, might look something like this.
All events are cancelled, except for my fundraisers with contributors of more than $1M.
Schools and businesses should encourage working from home on-line. I have recommended this to my WH security detail.
Free health care to those infected at my rallies.
Regular testing, starting with 3 tests a day for WH personnel, and up to 6 per day for residents with the surname Trump.
10
None of the US numbers mean anything until more test kits are available and we can get a real sense of how widely the virus has spread. We might, of course, be pleasantly surprised. We might not. To say that getting the test kits out there across the US is absolutely crucial is an enormous understatement. Thus far, our government's response seems woefully inadequate, on many many fronts.
19
I want to get corona now - and get it over with - before it becomes widespread. A lot of people are going to need a lot of help when it does. I could be useful.
2
@Dave An interesting perspective.
There are always some advantages to going first.
3
@John B
Unless you're in a high-risk group.
2
A lot can happen in two years before a vaccine is available to Joe Public. Is anyone checking that the information coming out of China is true. You're also going to have problems getting the correct information out of problematic nations like Iran, North Korea etc that are not democracies. And where is the World Health Organisation - are they on the ground double checking that government reports from those nations are correct. What exactly does the World Health Organisation do? Communal world wide open borders and lack of accountability = no accountability world wide because communal = lack of personal responsibility worldwide.
3
@CK said " Is anyone checking that the information coming out of China is true."
I don't trust the Chinese government at all. I do however trust Chinese scientists who have shared genetic information on the virus. We've got a problem but it is not insurmountable.
3
Meanwhile, Trump is golfing and complaining about Obama. People are dying from his incompetence.
111
For the past 10 years, I’ve noticed that strong jobs reports have virtually never led to higher stock prices. It seems that Wall Street loved bad job reports because they could lead to lower interest rates.
Sigh, it’s enough to make one consider democratic socialism.
26
Treetop! Democratic socialism would augur the end our economic vitality. Shame!
1
Tejas, you may be right but your surety isn’t 100% deserved, given the happiness index in capitalist (democratic socialist) Denmark and other European countries. There’s a possibility that enhanced social programs could be accomplished without harming our financial position. One of those programs, Medicare for all, might well be more efficiently run than the various systems we now use for healthcare delivery.
3
@NOTATE REDMOND Yeah, because the Nordic countries are doing so poorly. They outperform us in almost every economic and social metric. But keep beating the Socialism dead horse. The younger people in this country have wised up to the lies of unregulated capitalism.
5
World production to be lowest since 2009. That’s the real reason for the Trump Slump.
11
Last few hours, but it looks like the market is going to close up this week. Thoughts?
2
@Ratel2
Investors know this isn't a crisis.
2
Even at best. Uncertainty, poor Corvid 19 data - unreliable.
2
Uh...the numbers at the rop of this article are real-time.
See the minus signs?
5
Will Trump hold a “fireside chat” to reassure the public? Or will he hold a rally and assign blame to everyone else? I bet on the latter.
104
@EW : Yesterday, Trump blamed Obama for the coronavirus. And he has absolutely no ability whatsoever to calm anyone...ever. Lying yes, calming, no!
2
Added to everything else in the news today we were treated to the President, dressed in his golf togs, assuring us that all will be well "real soon." All the airlines will be busy flying domestic flights, Americans will spend all their money and home and we'll be better off.
All of that reminds one of the scenes from the Titanic movies with the three piece ensemble playing request on the slanted deck.
39
@Michael Kelly and we are paying for every trip!
5
Fact of the day: Stock market crashes because too many sissies are shareholders and they have no long term wisdom nor appetite for any loss of value in short term. I take crash of stock market as an opportunity to cheaply buy more S&P500 shares. I have got time and the market will come back up at some point.
12
Well it did have a Biden Bounce the day after Super Tuesday. Hear that Trump, a Biden Bounce it was called. Someone should start taking an inventory of the White House art works in case The Donald decides to get sticky fingers before 1/20/21.
22
@Patrick
One factor always mentioned in the earlier market drops was the Sanders' factor. He was having a negative effect on the market. The incumbent has a positive effect.
3
The markets are clearly signalling that they have no confidence in the Trump Administration.
Any CEO would be immediately fired if they delegated a crisis to a subordinate, especially one with zero experience in handling the crisis.
Trump asked, "what do you have to lose?" Well, apparently life, health, income and savings.
But we are stopping the murdering immigrants on the Southern border, right???
25
Markets react to insecurity. Nothing, absolute nothing is more insecure than the Trump's administration handling of a crisis. What the markets are telling Americans is - no one trusts a liar and their sycophants. And the Trump administration's "Let them eat cake" strategy is not answering the markets insecurities.
32
Looks like the Trump Economy is finally replacing the Obama Economy.
96
@Observer Yours is the best, most succinct evaluation to date. Should you let the guy in the White House know what is going on? Nah!
A correction may have been built in by obviously the virus is slowing the World economy on top of other factors that may have been present.
It plunges. It rises. It plunges. It rises. A plunge, in an of itself, isn't the full picture. A fuller picture would include the fact that investors consider this market very high and ripe for a correction. They've been waiting for it for months, although many predicted it would come next year.
In that respect, a massive correction has already been built in. The virus isn't the shock it would normally be.
4
@AACNY
The expected correction was based off of economic fundamentals pre-pandemic.
This correction is separate and based off the reality that sick people cannot work, nor buy things later on when they lack paychecks.
6
Great investment opportunities emerging for followers of the “Shock Doctrine” (thanks, Naomi Klein). Moreover, those predatory investors now have the added buying power of lowered interest rates recently provided by the Fed. (Add to that a president who seems more than willing to cut federally imposed costs [intended to protect the public] on major corporations, e.g., airlines and travel companies).
Shovel more cheap cash to the financial elites. That’s the Fed’s way of using our money to fight COVID 19.
Perfect.
How can this economic system NOT be seen as designed to mainly benefit the wealthy and other shareholders?
No, I am not a Democrat who wants COVID 19 to take Trump down. I simply want the majority of us to see how our present economic system is not working for the average American.
Perhaps that is asking too much. An education based on objective reality and rational thought is required.
We may be too late as a people, especially in the age of the internet and social media.
21
China didn't like the USA putting tariffs on their imports and seems weird to me that this virus was released on the public just before the USA elections. Just saying! I always said Trump shouldn't mess with China as he has no idea what he's doing long term and they'll think of something to get him out of Office.
8
They intentionally sank their future growth, created mass discontent with their party, and will cause long-term supply chain diversification against their country ... as a plan to stick it to Trump on trade?
Not a chance. This is massively destabilizing for China.
11
@CK
I think this comment qualifies for the saying:
The fact that your are paranoid doesn't mean that they are not after you.
China takes a severe economic hit from this and there have been similar pandemics in 1957, 1968, 2002 and 2009. That should bury any conspiracy theories.
6
@CK So the Chinese government released a pandemic in their country that's causing their already upset population of citizens to riot to get back at Trump?
1
Well I am not an economist, but I don’t understand why the Fed dropped the rate a half percent. If the stock market is down because of supply chain issues from Asia and concerns about a drop in consumer activity, then why on earth would lower interest rates help? Does it boost Foxconn’s supply output to Apple? If you’re staying away from restaurants and movie theaters because of a virus, is a lower interest rate going to change your mind? Of course the market is still down; none of the bedrock concerns driving the downturn are addressed by lower interest rates. And unfortunately the Fed exposed themselves as weak lackeys by doing it, because they knew better.
31
@Jim Jim the problem was there before virse . Virse tipping point .USA has record amount debt an make worse spending by our government has been in red along time. Problem here is government runnning off of taxs income from capital gains produced by wall street run. Now we have sell off an zero income in taxs for capital gains. Jobs that supplied income in taxs been quietly out sourced with the passing of NAFTA 2 last month by our congress . So were does our government think income will come from for taxs now? All spending on imports for government use should cease now .
1
It hasn't even been a month since this coronavirus has been recognised as being in the USA and look what's happening to the stock market; can you imagine what it will be like after a year - keeping in mind that a vaccine won't be available to Joe Public within 1-2 years.
9
Getting tested for the coronavirus is still impossible for most people in the US. Yet I wonder, has Trump gotten tested? How many people in Congress have been able to get secretly tested?
7
How long before we start hearing the call for corporate welfare for highly leveraged fracking firms? I am sure the likes of Rand Paul will hold their libertarian noses and demand that we throw more borrowed money at the oil patch.
13
I don’t but it was something that I heard.
Trump is not a leader.
8
If Trump would take his head out of the sand, he would stop disputing the coronavirus. He needs to take action at the bully pulpit to tell the truth and reassure the public with FACTS. And let the CDC and NIH do what they know best to do in a pandemic.
8
@Evelyn G
What would convince the public that what spews from him could be truth or facts?
1
Trump is liable to tear his hair out if this continues. His grasp of business and economics is purely magical with the stock markets being his Oracle of Delphi guide to the future. The stock market is a mixture of rational trading of monetized wealth and casino gambling which in the short run does not much conform with the economy nor opportunities for businesses. But the more serious problem is that Trump is not helping to mitigate the crisis due to this pandemic simply because he had no idea that the government was an important factor in mitigating unpredictable crises like pandemics. At the very least medical practitioners should have been able to test people to determine who might have the virus. That it still is not possible is simple incompetence in this Administration due to a President who is inept.
12
Will Donald Trump be President enough to take all the blame and credit for what happens to stocks and bonds during the coronavirus crisis?
By failing to declare and disclose and divest his personal assets into a blind- trust the American people can't tell where Trump Organization Mar- a-Lago ends and Trump Administration White House begins.
7
@Blackmamba
We know. They are one and the same.
1
For how many days can we survive the stock market crashing 800 to 1,000 points?
8
@Mary Arithmetic: one month of such would zero out the markets...
2
We have Trifecta of problems: Trump; COVID-19; Financial crisis. And all 3 are interconnected. Due to his incompetence Trump is worsening the effects of the virus. And he’s obviously trying to manipulate the markets. To keep himself in power.
If the Fed is quarantining cash from other nations, with the idea that possibly the virus can spread from surfaces, shouldn’t they be warning us or providing advice about dollars and coins? This is where the virus and finances interact.
It’s like bad comedy. Gone really, really wrong.
16
As Elizabeth Warren pointed out in her "exit interview" with Rachel Maddow, what the economy is going to need is stimulus spending. But Trump has made that extremely difficult by running up the federal deficit to record levels, all so that his fat cat buddies could get tax breaks. We're in deep trouble, and the markets know it. Sorry everyone, the big ride is over!
99
There's a lot of people of who are going to get rich by buying these stocks which will certainly rebound.
1
The divide between those saying this is overblown and those saying it is a big deal is largely the divide between those focused on individual risk versus population-level risk.
Those diminishing the threat tend to draw comparisons to the flu. It is true: in any given year, you as an individual are very unlikely to die of the flu. Yet it is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. So, from a population level, saying it is roughly as contagious and lethal as the flu is little comfort. From a given individual’s view, it might be quite a bit of comfort, given the individual in question is relatively young and healthy.
Framing it another way, had the world had the technology to recognize and control the flu when it first emerged, effectively acting on that would have been an incalculably positive service to all humankind.
13
Hows that tax cut for the top one per cent of earners panning out now? Trump should not have cut back on funding in the research area that deals with worldwide pandemics. Experts warned him about what would happen to these government departments because of funding cuts.
105
@CK
But he has the biggest brain on earth. He knows more and better than anyone.
Trump made everthing worse. He'll never admit it but it's true.
We all know it and will vote him out for it.
24
@Butterfly Unfortunately not all Americans know and a lot will still believe in any spin the Trump administration devises to deflect blame from the Dear Leader. Michelle Goldberg's article is 100% accurate.
7
“If my retirement account shrinks down after I finally retired because the STUPID feds did not plan for Corona I’m not voting Republican in November dammit!” Said my GOP neighbor.
131
@Machiavelli
Poor fellow. He doesn't realize how lucky he is that Trump has gotten his retirement account up so high. A much better place from which to start when a pandemic hits.
2
@AACNY
Stop saying Trump when you mean Obama. Trump’s free ride is over.
32
Gee, Pandemic?
I thought it was just a correction?
4
Trumps answer to everything? Throw other people's money at the problem - to save himself.
89
@Craig
The big difference is that the Dems have ideas on how to try to make life better and more fair for strugglung families.
Trump and the GOP all laugh and steal more money every way they can.
But you fault the Dems.
Ah well, practice saying President Biden.
12
@Craig
Who are these people who don't want to work?
And how do you know?
1
@Craig -- What about restaurant workers, when sick or scared people stay home? Bailout the restaurant industry, too? What about movies? I was really interested in seeing the new James Bond movie; now it's not coming out until November. Bailout the movie industry, and theaters, too? What about the sports? Who's going to attend March Madness games when the crowds are full of sick people? Bailout the colleges and universities, and the arenas?
Where do the bailouts and help end...? We're already bailing out farmers, and that's due to our own stupid self-inflicted (well, Trump-inflicted) harm.
On a side note. We need to move to digital money completely. Cash spreads germs.
9
@BJ c
In Norway they already have.
3
@BJ
And so do credit cards.
2
@Judy Credit cards are (in most cases) only touched by the owner.
Clearly less of a vector than cash.
1
I wish I had the financial resources of these well healed Republicans I'd be buying stocks.
5
@Steve
It's anybody's guess as to whether they'll be more well healed than anyone else.
But well heeled they are. And they couldn't care less about the rest of us.
23
Nothing to worry about. Our fearless leaders first line of defense in this economic mess is to give cruise ships and airlines a tax break.
Cruise ships and jets are the incubator for virus and disease. My statement is nothing new....it is factual and has been well known for fifty years.
43
A leader that destroys every tool available to him to manage and operate what he has been given to lead is mentally ill. Should be replaced at the first opportunity and sent home and for the country to learn from this mistake. However, electing Trump in 2016, in retrospect, was beyond a mistake. This is not a president, like others before him, that has the ability to learn on the job, much less learn period, and grow with it while managing with grace and skill the challenges that a great country as ours is destined to encounter.
Trump, as a president, has no policies, he has an attitude that clearly is not what we need.
Ask yourself, do you want another four years of this man as a president.
We can do better.
143
@freeasabird
Trump continues to shoot from the hip, convinced that his gut is right. He just told Hannity that he had a "hunch" about the crisis. Trump has a history of making very bad decisions and now his poor judgement is hurting the United States.
10
@freeasabird
I was going to respond to your last sentence that we couldn't do worse, but Republicans in the past 40 years seem to take that as a challenge.
Never mind.
16
@freeasabird Made a lot a money in the market with Trump. Lot a money.
A top comment compares this virus to seasonal flu... I don’t understand the need to compare COVID-19 to seasonal flu or SARS or Ebola or anything else. It is what it is — a highly contagious and deadly new virus regardless of other other known viruses. We barely know anything about it. People are relapsing. People are dying. Comparing it to seasonal flu promotes a false sense of security among the general population, who have proven to be less than hygienic and compliant regarding outbreaks. So let’s focus on this virus, on the situation at hand, and take action to contain and stop the spread, and treat those affected. Take precautions, don’t panic, but also don’t go to work or out in public if you show symptoms. COVID-19 is NOT the flu.
113
COVID-19 is less pervasive, less deadly and, likely, more contagious that the seasonal flu. Why do we not combat the flu like we are COVID19.
8
@JTI You just replied to my comment about NOT comparing COIV-19 to the seasonal flu by actually comparing it to seasonal flu.
22
Oh here come all the Trump supporters to contradict the health experts. This is what three years of a president who cries "fake news!" has done.
7
I see stocks tanking early in the day, rising briefly, then falling again.
All this is is playing the spread by automated algorithms taking profits as the market decreases and increases.
Speculation, of course, exacerbates, making the gyrations much greater than normal.
Bloomberg should be making a killing. Probably so much the better for Uncle Joe.
15
@PC Bloomberg runs a market data firm. He makes the same money if the market goes up or down. Algorithmic orders are used by all brokers including retail brokers. The only effect they have on the market is to reduce the size of the average order and reduce market impact.
@Mick, you don’t think he has traders that use his platform? I have a hard time with your statement that it reduces market impact. I believe just the opposite but I’m no trader.
The stock market has become a bully market. When the demands of the stock market and other investment markets run against the well-being of human civilization such as what is happening now with Covid-19, their voices should be diminished. When a market guru says “There really isn’t a response from the administration or the authorities telling people to calm down and there’s a plan,” said Mr. Goldberg. “It certainly feels like there isn’t a plan and I feel like that’s what the markets reacting to.” It shows that investment markets are in an irrational panic where they are demanding guidance when in fact the knowledge needed to act either individually or collectively is available if one screens out the verbiage coming from uninformed individuals.
5
@Jim Tokuhisa Markets respond to the uncertainty. It is a rational response. Difficult to run a business when there is a high level of uncertainty since decisions have to be made in anticipation of what the economic/business situation will be in the future.
12
@Jim Tokuhisa Market response is not just speculation. There are already US-based businesses reporting millions of dollars of losses due to the cessation of imports from China. And there are local businesses, such as restaurants here in NYC, that are being killed. Moreover, did you hear Elizabeth Warren explaining to Rachel Maddow that with just 5 big global banks, which will now begin to experience loan repayment failures, there's a chance of a financial catastrophe not unlike 2008? Do you think Trump understands that?
31
The Stock Market, is not the economy. The economy will start to be impacted as schools close, parents cannot go to work, or work from home. Already, seeing near empty streets where once Google and Amazon techies filled the streets. Worse, we have an incompetent Trump who spreads misinformation and lies. The CDC website has not been updated. Why? We are getting the real numbers from John Hopkins CSSE website, which shows 14 deaths, and 238 cases in the U.S. The Stock Market reacts poorly to misinformation.
169
For every seller, there is a buyer.
Ever wonder how the stock market works?
7
@Majortrout
And everybody's fine until they're not.
8
Even if the Coronavirus situation and markets stabilize, voters need to ask themselves why they’d vote Trump in again.
He puts most things at risk only to lose, just as he did with his businesses; the difference of course, is now the loss comes at the cost of life, loss of wealth and overall security.
You may believe in his immigration policies and like his stances on guns, abortion, etc. but at this great a risk to your health and wealth and security?
For the Trump supporters, it is worth revisiting what you think you value and being honest with yourselves about the risk trump poses to you personally. The risk is real; from stripping away healthcare, to ensuring all communities have clean drinking water, and of course, everything mentioned above and more.
The communities at the biggest risk, are the ones where his base lives.
244
It is worth adding that now Trump is considering tax breaks for airlines, etc to help manage the losses they’re suffering.
Let’s be clear — had he been a good leader, we would not be at risk with the virus or market losses — but because he cannot lead, he needs to put bandaids on everything, which is costing the average taxpayer.
More debt that he’s putting this country in — just as he did with his businesses that went belly-up.
The only thing he does well is bankrupt institutions (and businesses in his previous life).
Do not vote for him — he is putting his base at the greatest risk — they just don’t know it.
208
@MM
Great investment opportunities emerging for followers of the “Shock Doctrine” (thanks Naomi Klein). Moreover, those predatory investors now have the added buying power of lowered interest rates just provided by the Fed.
Shovel more cheap cash to the financial elites. That’s the Fed’s way of using our money to fight COVID 19.
Perfect.
How can this economic system NOT be seen as designed to mainly benefit the wealthy and other shareholders?
72
Most of “ his base” doesn’t read the NYT . I do not know if you will print this but the typical Trump voter is not smart enough to connect the dots about this virus and the potential impact it will have until it is too late.( It May be already) They think it’s the media . Of course Trumps information is so unbelievably false it’s very dangerous to all who believe him, which is far too many.
77
Spread the word, it's a Trump Slump.
294
@Dave
And he’s the Corona King.
27
@Dave
It is the Covefe virus after all.
25
@TheraP
Corona King? Oh oh, Trump is going to blame Mexico for the virus.
8
Seems to me overblown. Compare it to the Spanish Flu of 1918 and it’s just a cold killing off old people in nursing homes.
It’s not going to hurt healthy young folks like the one that started in Kansas around 100 years ago, a pandemic so deadly you’d be fine in the morning and dead by night. People were bleeding from their ears and dying of thirst because others were too afraid to tend to them.
Estimated to have killed 100 million in three waves it was only eclipsed by the Great War in Flanders. Now that was a thing to fear. They didn’t even have 747’s!
So relax, all this virus is likely to do is breed complacency.
2
@Uncle Peevish - actually, the virus succeeded in puncturing the market bubble that was artificially inflated by Trump’s corporate / billionaire tax cut (stock buybacks, anyone?) and deficit stimulus not via infrastructure spending but military spending we don’t need. So it didn’t breed complacency on Wall Street but panic.
21
#Uncle Peevish - I'm guessing you are not an old person in a nursing home and that you have no loved ones in a nursing home. BTW - the most susceptible age range is 66 to 90, most of whom are not in nursing homes and many of whom are still working.
40
I read “Influenza”, too, and one thing your not mentioning about the 1918 Spanish Flu and now is that the science and technology to create combat that virus (via vaccination or treatment) didn’t exist. In short, no one knew what to do because no one really knew what was hitting them.
Today, we have the science to understand this virus and the technology to combat it. But as is always the case, the ability of technology to keep pace with the new, novel coronaviruses like Covid-19 is always lacking. And, as you wrongly infer, this virus is NOT the flu. It is transmitted much more quickly, can survive on uncleaned surfaces for several days and can reoccur in a human host even if said human contracted it and got over it. Let’s also consider that infections last 2-4 weeks as opposed to a flu which is generally one week. There is no hysteria about this virus.
22
One of the reasons that the market is reacting like this is that it is obvious when one looks at the distribution of cases in the US, the frequency of deaths compared to reported cases, and the structure of the US medical system that the number of actual cases in the US must be radically under reported. It does not help that your president is a pathological liar, who has appointed a group of ideological incompetents in his cabinet and gutted your social and regulatory infrastructure. The stock market is not overreacting given this reality. PS wash your hands, don’t travel or hang out in large groups unless you absolutely have to do so.
151
to be clear...what the markets are reflecting is NOT panic.
this is what an orderly exit from ownership positions of institutions, hedge funds and billionaires looks like.
and it isn't merely the knock on effects from the coronavirus—interest rates in Europe have been negative for a very long time.
seasoned professionals have had the caution flag out for at least a year.
100
@Mary Elizabeth Lease
They've been predicting a correction for almost 2 years. They are ready for anything at this point.
5
Coronavirus is not Ebola, it is more along the lines of a nasty strain of the flu. Influenza will kill far more people this year, next year and the year after that. Always has and will continue to do so long after we leave this planet.
There is no sense of scale anymore, thanks to our over reliance on information and the web media. Everything is a ten or a one, there are no inbetweens. When was the last time the forecaster predicted a 3 inch snowfall? Nowadays snow has two forms, either a blizzard or its a flurry.
Coronavirus is serious, but not a game-changer. Lets keep it in perspective.
21
@megachulo People are losing trust because they can’t even find hand sanitizers and masks in store, which are the simplest ways to prevent the spread. This is an astonishing level of unpreparedness, and is reason enough to panic (don’t tell me masks are not effective until you have to care for someone who’s ill and can’t find any).
If this nastier strain of flu finds a foothold it will be forever and next year is going to be worse. Who cares about a few percentage drop and lower economic activity, if that rids us of this deadly disease that spreads even before its symptoms appear?
32
@megachulo First, the addition of COVID-19 on top of an already heavy flu season may well result in our already busy hospitals being pushed beyond their limits regarding capacity, and second, only 45% (!) of US citizens get vaccinated against the flu. How's that for pathetic?
55
The WHO doesn’t issue dire warnings to hurt trump or scare people. They are providing sound guidance based on science. Sticking your head in the sand is ridiculous and dangerous. The mortality rate of Covid-19 is an order of magnitude greater than the flu, for which we have a vaccine each year. There is no vaccine for Coronavirus and won’t be for at least year. This is not a joke and not alarmist. It is fact.
41
In some ways, it's not hard to see this as a market over-reaction. I'm also leery of the media's lack of perspective -- even with all the recent losses, the S&P 500 is still above all of 2019, with the exception of a brief window in July-August of 2019.
Of course we don't know where the bottom of this crisis is economically, but it's not impossible that spending related to the virus -- whether it's government spending or consumer reactive spending -- offsets losses related to virus-related issues. Making a billion N95 masks and a billion vaccine doses is economic activity as much as consumers buying a couple hundred million unncessary smartphone upgrades.
16
@Conch Republican ... S&P 500 isn't gonna help Starbucks worker hours when people stop coming in the door. There are some pretty good indications of what the impact will be already from China. Restaurants, movies, leasure, coffee/tea shops, retail in general all in tough shape for the last month. Will they bounce back? How fast? And then there is all the economic activity around travel, business travel, and hotel/vacation, etc.. The "virus economy" is a very meager offset to what we lose. There is a onetime spike in purchase for supplies (clorox wipes, puerell, gloves, masks, water, food goods) ... and then done. People are going to choose not to be in public or move around much. So impossible to offset? No. Likely this impact will be offset by 8.5 billion, a dumb rate cut, and the spike of virus supply shopping? That's a resounding not even close! Watch oil and aviation the past week. The real truth is the virus is just the shove the economy probably needs to put it into true quad 4 potential recession territory. You don't continually rate cut a strong economy. We've had a lopsided economy that has been continually perpetuated by the current administration and the virus may just unveil our true health.
9
@Andrew And most of the stuff they are buying is made in China.
1
Japan has 1000+ cases but only 8 deaths, whereas U.S. has 230 confirmed cases and 14 deaths. Obviously the U.S. is under-testing and there are many more unconfirmed cases out there. That is very dangerous.
345
@tanstaafl: The number of cases includes many of those on the cruise ship and I believe most(all?) of the deaths were passengers. There have no yet been large, widespread outbreaks (positive tests) beyond that group. Maybe Japan hasn't tested enough of the general population yet, but excluding the cruise ship passengers in both countries, the US is currently looking more dangerous.
3
I don’t think Data from Japan is reliable. They’re not conducting enough tests.
3
@Anna
Ha! Japan isn't conducting enough tests? And the U.S. is??
46
The United States earned this for its myopic focus on money and profit over people and wellbeing.
333
@Matt Proud
The USA has earned this, but the driver of the America's bus was the Greed Over People party that demanded 'small government', zero regulation, cultured ignorance, 'No New Taxes !' and an unafforadable healthcare system in order to keep billionaires and CEO's painted in gold.
Heckuva' job, GOP !
68
@Matt Proud -- and Trump's Azar proves your point, as he comments about who will be able to afford the vaccine when it's available: "We would want to ensure that we'd work to make it affordable, but we can't control that price because we need the private sector to invest."
Since the U.S. taxpayers are also investing 5.2 billion towards a covid-19 vaccine research and prevention -- you'd think we'd have more of a say over the price -- Free.
24
@LSW
The Biden wins in numerous states he didn't spend a dime in proves the entire campaign finance treasure is unnecessary, something I have been arguing for years. All we need is the debates, but they want billions to run campaigns. The question is why? It's all because the corporate lobbies and foreign lobbies want to BUY elected officials who will then do their bidding.
The entire system is corrupt. That's why we get to finance it and then pay through the nose.
5
Gee. An all-time low of 0.7% on the ten year bond. I wonder when trump will boast about this?
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@Bill: The US has been on the road to zero for a long time; coronavirus just speeded up the flight to US Treasuries. Look at the chart of any Treasury maturity over the past 40 years. The bond market has now given up any hope of "normalizing" the yield curve and positive real rates.
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@Bill
It's the greatest all time low we've ever seen.
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@Bill the low yield is a result of high demand for T-bonds. Although a bleak indicator for the direction of the overall economy, Trump wouldn't brag about the low yields, he would brag about the high demand. Give the man some credit.
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