While Trends Journal publisher Gerald Celente decried what he calls “coronavirus storm chasers” for fear mongering, noted economist Mohamed El-Erian is offering the opposite stance, saying people shouldn’t buy any dips related to the virus that will “paralyze China.”
Allianz’s chief economic adviser and former Pimco CEO told CNBC that the coronavirus outbreak is going to hammer China, affecting global growth and taking a bite out of markets everywhere.
“For a long time I thought the market sentiment was so strong that we could overcome a mounting list of economic uncertainty,” El-Erian said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” program. “But the coronavirus is different. It is big. It’s going to paralyze China. It’s going to cascade throughout the global economy.
“Importantly, it cannot be countered by central bank policy. So I think we should pay more attention to this, and we should try and resist our inclination to buy the dip.”
Of course, after the Dow saw it’s single-worst trading day since August on Friday, falling 603 points, everyone is buying the dip, it seems — at least here in the states.
Despite Chinese indexes cratering after opening for the first time since Jan. 23 on Monday, we saw decent gains for all three major U.S. indexes, including a 0.5% rise for the Dow, a 0.7% rise for the S&P 500 and a big 1.3% rise for the Nasdaq.
And Tuesday was another great day for equities. The S&P 500 and Dow both rose around 1.5% while the Nasdaq closed 2.1% higher.
Meanwhile, after an extended holiday break in China, the country’s $7.5 trillion stock market fell as much as 9.1% Monday.
“It paralyzes economic confidence. So how often do you get a shock that effects the demand and the supply side, that disrupts domestic and international activities, that derails the service sector at a time when the manufacturing sector is still weak?” El-Erian said. “And all of this, in the context of fragility in the global economy. So I do worry about this. This one is different. It is not the disruption to Saudi oil production in September. It is not the missile attack that the U.S. carried out on Iran in general.
“This is a fundamental shock to economic growth in China.”