For weeks, there has been a strange divergence among those trying to predict what coronavirus might mean for financial markets and the world economy.
People in the trenches of global commerce — supply chain managers, travel industry experts, employers large and small — warned of substantial disruptions to their businesses. And public health authorities feared that the disease could spread far beyond Wuhan in China.
Yet financial markets and most economic forecasters projected the virus outbreak wouldn’t do much harm to the economy and corporate profits — at the least, nothing that an interest-rate cut or two from the Federal Reserve couldn’t fix. The S&P 500 hit a new high last Wednesday. Continue reading.