2020 has seen a very noisy start to the year with one major event with significant human and investment market implications after another. For Australia it started with an intensification of the bushfires but moved on to a significant ramping up of US/Iran tensions where, according to President Trump, war came “closer than you thought” and now the coronavirus outbreak is creating fears of a global pandemic and a big hit to global economic activity.
These are scary in terms of their human consequences, but also in terms of the potential economic fallout and what it means for investors. The coronavirus outbreak in particular continues to pose significant uncertainty around the short-term economic outlook. In terms of the key things to watch there is some good news with signs of a reported slowing in new cases in China and still limited transmission outside China (which has 99% of cases).