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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

Maybe the markets will start to flatten out now?

My guess is that the markets won't settle down until we have a handle on the public health crisis.

Not even close. I think everyone knows things will get worse, but at this point there are too many unknowns to quantify that. The market will remain stable for a few days, but there will continually be more data that will cause the market to continue to drop.

We still haven't seen any country match China as far as total cases. Once Italy gets to 80k and then 160k 4 days later a new wave of anxiety will pass through people.

When did Italy lock down the country? Last week? So then next week should hopefully be their peak.

Hopefully. People are still allowed to go to work, and there are a number of people not respecting the rules. Everyone keeps hoping to see the numbers dip, but they aren't yet.

Hopefully you're right and this is why the market is stable for now. Maybe it will happen that Italy will stabilize. I don't think there are any epidemologists right now who don't think that Italy will reach 80k cases and 160k as well, but the distance between 80k cases and 160k might be much longer than I mention.

But this brings its own uncertainty. If we succeed in not overwhelming the medical system then everyone will remain on lockdown longer which will have it's own unique economic impact.

The point I'm making is that it most certainly will get much worse, but exactly how and what that means is very uncertain right now so virtually impossible to price correctly.

Italy has more reported total deaths than China at this point. Spain is also catching up fast.

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