Things are definitely looking bad, but given how optimistic the market has seemed over the past months even with lots of bad news coming out, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a pretty sharp recovery once Covid-19 is contained.
The thing you don't need testing capacity to detect is the serious and critical cases. So, look at the "Total Number of Severe or Critical Cases" over time. [1]
Note that for cases which will be "severe" that the median time to onset of severe symptoms is 1 week (WHO report). Median time for any symptoms is 5-6 days. So essentially, if it is going to get bad, it gets bad quickly.
What this indicates to me is that now that there is finally some actual testing capacity being deployed, we will see a lot of "new" cases, but they are old infections. Growth of the case count is not indicative of the actual current "growth factor", or R0 in the community.
[1] - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/...
I still think we can all acknowledge at this time that this is an endemic virus. Containment is no longer possible.
Containment in an absolute sense is not possible, but the data does not support a conclusion that pervasive infection (e.g. 10% of world population, as what happens every year with the flu) is inevitable.
Arguably the only two data points we have at this point seem to point to containment actually being possible.
Only once the daily testing rate has stabilized can you directly observe the new case growth rate without a bias.
My theory on the severe case load in China is that the total infection rate is under-reported by at least an order of magnitude. We’ll only ever know if we have reliable serological testing (for antibodies) which is not yet being done.
The market fears are not a result of being afraid people will die. It's mostly around consumer spending,containment/quarantine efforts and supply chain stability.
This by itself is a very recoverable crisis, you don't need bailouts and mergers like in 2008. Nothing has collapsed (yet), which means everyone is trying to "buy low" as soon as any sign of long term recovery is seen. The only big fear is how politicians might throw gas into the fire for certain political ends.
> The market fears are not a result of being afraid people will die. It's mostly around consumer spending,containment/quarantine efforts and supply chain stability.
It's a nasty virus, but this isn't the Spanish Flu devastating the post-WW1 landscape. It is absolutely going to screw up productions schedules and messing with the supply chain. Turns out if millions of people have to miss work the economy suffers, go figure.
I agree, but what if they don't?
It's quite easy to just stop doing stuff, order everything on Amazon, and binge on TV and video games.
It's arguably even rational to do it. Socializing is somewhat of a risk right now, and I'm pretty comfortable at home.
The CDC said today that Americans should avoid taking long flights. The administration is downplaying the risk to Americans.
> which means everyone is trying to "buy low" as soon as any sign of long term recovery is seen
The market was given a chance to do that last week when the fed cut rates. The fact that futures are limit down tonight suggests that this selling may go deep.
I would love to "buy low", but the bottom may not happen until prices are back to 2008 levels.
Also 10Y is now down below 0.35. I'm not sure where the cracks in the system are, but this is a global stress test of the economy.
It really depends on the unknown factors. Things will normalize because people gotta eat, the big unknown here is when. Will everyone start missing mortgage payments and credit card bills because quarantines (unlikely)? Will supply chain issues cause big losses (very likely)? But you can make up for losses,like you said even with quarantine people still order online. We're seeing losses but no cascadig long term collapse like detroit,aig,lehman brothers in '08. But the worsr case can still play out and collapses can start cascading if the corona fears and oil dispute last more than a few weeks
it's fine as a personal effort, it's an issue when it turns into a forced group activity.
And fyi, i am the last person that would support pence politically.