(Washington)

The OECD sounded a big alarm this week about the threat of coronavirus to the economy. The group of rich countries announced that coronavirus may have a devastating effect on the economy, cutting growth in half. The organization said that growth this year could shrink to 1.5% from its previous forecast of 2.9% growth. It said the outbreak and actions taken in China would cut global growth by 0.5 percentage points alone, not even factoring in the rest of the world’s outbreak and response.

FINSUM: So long as the virus keeps spreading and negative headlines keep coming, more and more economy-shrinking actions will follow. Markets will react in kind.