ECB Launches New €750 Billion ‘Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program’. Says ‘Won’t Tolerate’ Virus Anymore
When news broke on Wednesday that the ECB was holding an emergency meeting, the market knew something was coming, it just wasn't clear what.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire implored the central bank to intervene "quickly and massively" in order to tamp down spreads and said he wanted to see Christine Lagarde marshal all of the instruments at her disposal and "quickly", at that.
Fast forward a few hours and the ECB did, in fact, act. The Governing Council on Wednesday evening announced
Johns Hopkins Coronovirus dashboard
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
A much better website is:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
One can look at each country, and each U.S. state. Many graphs can be changed from linear to logarithmic.
Of interest to me is how well South Korea and Hong Kong are doing in containing and controlling this virus.
I believe that after widespread testing shows a great jump in U.S. cases, we will see the infection rate change from logarithmic to linear, then stable, then decline ala South Korea. I’d guess the “stable” part, that South Korea was able to achieve in only about 5 or 6 weeks, will take us two , probably three, months.
While the health crisis will pass, the economic ramifications are huge, and will take much longer to heal.
What is happening in Iran, and the Trump administration’s insistence on maintaining sanctions on that country as it struggles to stave off what could be millions of death, is unconscionable. For their actions in this regard, Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Miller, Kushner, and the rest of that rotten lot will go down in history as this era’s Vichy government. #MAGA
This point in time reminds me of October 2008. Or maybe summer 2008. Either way, I recall the market didn’t bottom until March 2009.