Coronavirus, Now Global, Will Dominate News For Months

The idea that stocks would erase losses and finish strongly positive after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it was raising the level of threat to that of an international pandemic is just plain perverse.

It's what happens when 70% of the trading is performed by headline scanning algorithms that saw the WHO headline as essentially, "nothing to worry about, we got this."

Nothing could be further from the truth. The coronavirus has spread now to encompass the entire Northern Hemisphere, with Russia the latest to announce cases of the virus within its borders. Italy has issued a six month state of emergency. Two-thirds of China is under some form of travel restriction, quarantine, or other health-related orders. Person-to-person transmission has been reported in at least five countries, including Japan and the United States.

Within two weeks the most recent numbers (9692 confirmed cases, 213 deaths as of January 30) are going to be dwarfed by the magnitude of the spread of this pathogen, and there's still no reliable data on the ratio of confirmed cases to deaths, which range - according to medical experts - from two percent to as high as 12 percent, but nobody actually knows for sure.

The WHO, at its press conference Thursday announcing a global pandemic went out of its way to praise China's efforts to contain the virus. This statement was made only to avoid causing a panic. China was actually slow to report the initial outbreak, initially punishing people who were issuing warnings, eventually acting with little regard to human life, allowing the virus to spread unchecked for weeks.

Wikipedia has about as accurate and compelling a timeline as could be expected.

If the Chinese did such a bang-up job containing this virus, why is it now to be found in more than 25 other countries? Why are flights in and out of China only being banned now, nearly two months after the initial report of this new, deadly strain (December 1 or December 8)?

There's a very good chance, being that China has shut down most transportation facilities in and out of cities and provinces, that food shortages will occur and that more people may die from starvation or other causes than the actual disease.

This virus has been taken far too lightly and is going to continue to spread, virtually unchecked, for months.

Meanwhile, the Senate looks to wrap up the impeachment trial of President Trump on Friday after a vote to allow more witnesses is taken and will likely fail. The Republicans have 50 votes at least with which to defeat the motion, the only wild card being that the presiding judge, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, could conceivably take the unprecedented step of deciding the motion should the vote come down as a 50-50 tie.

He is expected to NOT take that step, as a tie would defeat the measure.

In economic news, the first estimate of 2019 fourth quarter GDP came in at 2.1%, making all of 2019, at 2.3%, the worst year under President Trump. GDP grew by 2.9% in 2018, and 2.4% in 2017.

And, in Virginia, the state assembly is wasting no time making sure citizens cannot defend themselves.

At the Close, Thursday, January 30, 2020:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 28,859.44, +124.99 (+0.43%)
NASDAQ: 9,298.93, +23.77 (+0.26%)
S&P 500: 3,283.66, +10.26 (+0.31%)
NYSE: 13,861.92, +18.11 (+0.13%)