INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Now, its campaign against the pandemic is being scrutinized for clues on how much further this once-in-a-generation crash will go.
While
market players are being bombarded with support measures from central banks and the global stimulus pledge is $3 trillion and growing, the
number that traders are playing close attention to is the Italian infection growth rate
Since the country was the first in Europe to implement lockdown measures, market participants are looking for clues on how effectively its
peers can fight back.
The theory is that emergency stimulus is no cure for a public-health crisis, so asset allocation based on interest
rates and bottom-up corporate analysis is on the backburner
Instead, people are trying to divine the market bottom by studying a nation whose death toll now surpasses that reported in China and they
chief investment officer at Colombo Wealth SA
JPMorgan has also started issuing daily reports examining infection rates across Europe
JPMorgan analysts including Richard Vosser wrote Friday about Italy, adding that the brokerage expects the number of those who have
to be seen until the two-week mark.
The number of deaths in the country as of Friday climbed to 4,032 as total cases increased to 47,021
While the rate of confirmed diagnoses -- the data investors are keenly monitoring -- has shown signs of slowing, the fatality rate on Friday
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak began, reported no new infections -- signaling the virus can be brought under control.
Of
course, the reported number of new infections depends on how many tests are conducted
For weeks Italy has just tested people with symptoms so the real number of cases could be much higher than the official one, several studies
In the last few days, some regions have started to do mass testing to its citizens
In a report this week, Christopher Wood, global head of
equity strategy at Jefferies LLC, poured over European infection data including Italy as a fear gauge for international investors
Watch for an infections peak in France, Germany and Switzerland to see if a Western democracy can curb the spread of illness, Wood wrote in
Global Wealth Management in a phone interview
For John Roe, head of multi-asset funds at Legal - General Investment Management, Italy is old news as protracted cross-asset volatility and
with a slew of big measures announced by policy makers this week as they seek to combat the economic meltdown from the pandemic
It all helped stem the free-fall in European stocks, which posted their best two-day gain since 2016
But the gauge remains 32% below its February record high.
But for many investors, dissecting the outbreak data remains the critical trading
