‘Historic’ & ‘Unrecognisable’: Analysts Warn of Deepening Crunch Due to US’ ‘Full Economic Stop’

Social distancing due to COVID-19 has led to a shutdown of conventional economic mechanisms, with analysts lamenting that their and their colleagues’ forecasts could be nothing but vague and far-fetched, as the current factors are completely unprecedented.

Economists have been increasingly voicing their and the general public’s concerns about coronavirus forcing the world’s economies to grind to a halt, with Goldman Sachs analysts warning that the US’ GDP will plunge by a record 24% amid a full “economic stop.”

“It doesn’t even show up own historical charts”, Myles Udland, an economic reporter for Yahoo Finance, commented on the forecast, adding that “this puts into perspective the magnitude of what we could be looking at in the next couple of months”.

Economists have struggled to picture and model the coronavirus’ economic fallout, with Credit Suisse economist James Sweeney stating that there is “no blueprint for the current shock”, while the general uncertainty “about the extent of contagion and the economic consequences is overwhelming”.

Although many investment banks, like Bank of America and JPMorgan are less pessimistic than Goldman Sachs and have come up with more modest guesstimates, all of them have a bleak forecast for the second quarter of the year.

“We believe that the US economy has fallen into recession, joining the rest of the world, and it is a deep plunge”, Bank of America economists led by Michelle Meyer wrote on Thursday, outlining the grim details of would-be life:

“Jobs will be lost, wealth will be destroyed and confidence depressed. The salvation will come if there is a targeted and aggressive policy response to offset the loss of economic activity and ensure a sound financial system… There is a large uncertainty band around the forecasts”.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank specifically brought up the fact that no historical example can be found to “anchor” the ongoing economic collapse:

Barclays economists likewise stressed that timely evidence from conventional economic data releases is still “in short supply”, going on to speculate on the coronavirus hotspot localisation in the US and make conclusions:

“Hotspots eventually occur in states that encompass 60% of overall US activity, but with deeper disruptive effects than we projected previously”, the team speculated.

The contagious COVID-19 infection has been raging across the world for the past three months, having originated in December in China, which has of late been surpassed in terms of the number of coronavirus-caused fatalities by Italy. The US comes in third in terms of the number of registered cases to date with 35,079.

Economies are struggling due to disrupted economic networks, as most people – potential clients for businesses and employees themselves – are recommended to set up home offices, as well as ditch travel and any relocation.

While the form, timing, and impact of the response to the pandemic, as governments are working on updates to monetary and fiscal policies, are not fully clear, it is widely believed that only a dip in confirmed cases and health authorities’ total control of the pandemic may again lead to an upswing in activity.

Sourse: sputniknews.com

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