President Donald Trump can try all he wants to blame the news media and Democratic leaders for coronavirus financial turmoil, but the global fears of economic upheaval are based on genuine market concerns. Consumers and travelers are coming face to face with the market realities, belying Trump's repeated assurances that everything is fine. Financial markets are risk-averse, and the global spread of the coronavirus is boosting the risk factor to new heights, which is why the stock market continued its roller-coaster ride even after Tuesday's Federal Reserve interest rate cut.
Initial market turmoil reflected concerns about a sharp slowdown in manufacturing because a mass quarantine in China had brought production supply chains to a standstill. Major corporations such as Apple and Microsoft couldn't get the components they needed, and alternative suppliers outside China were either too slow to meet production demand or their prices threatened to push production costs beyond a tolerable threshold. Companies that routinely dispatch employees back and forth from Asia can no longer afford the risk and 14-day quarantine such travel entails.
The news media didn't make up these factors. They are the business reality.
