Virus outbreak stalks markets as 2020 gains get wiped out
Source: Associated Press
an hour ago
LONDON (AP) — Global shares fell sharply once again Wednesday as fears over the speed of the new coronavirus around the world accentuated.
With the spread around Europe gathering pace — Greece became the latest country to reveal its first case — investors are getting increasingly concerned about how long it will take for the world to bring the outbreak under some sort of control. United Airlines and Mastercard are just two of the many companies that have warned about the impact of the outbreak on their finances.
“What we appear to be seeing is the realisation that global economic growth could well come to a halt as the combined effects of a flu virus and belated attempts to stem the spread of it across the globe, raise the prospect of an economic sneeze, as consumers stop spending, and supply chains seize up, due to workers and consumers staying at home,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
Given the wide array of concerns, it’s hardly surprising that traders have hit the sell button. Many stock indexes around the world have seen their gains this year wiped out.
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In May 2018, Trump ordered the [National Security Council's] entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer's DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40 percent, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced.
Sold a few underperforming stocks and bought a bond fund. What is more frightening than the actual Covid virus is the response in the world of finance. 
