Coronavirus fears exaggerated: James Glassman, JPMorgan Chase

"I think it will be very disruptive for a few months and then when we get into the spring quarter, you are going to see a very strong rebound,” said Glassman, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase.

CNBC-TV18

February 25, 2020 / 03:04 PM IST

JPMorgan

Markets across the world are trying to grapple with coronavirus hitting China's production capabilities. Some experts believe that the impact will be short-term as things should be under control sooner than later.

CNBC-TV18 spoke to Geoffrey Dennis, an emerging markets commentator, and James Glassman, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase to get an in-depth impact analysis.

James Glassman believes that there will be negligible long-term impact. “This is going to be very transitory because China is already getting back to work. It is going to take a few more weeks before they get back to something more normal but this is a first-quarter phenomenon and for economists, when we think about the year as a whole, I see no change in views about the global economy compared with a couple of months ago. So it is not anything that makes sense to an economist. It is just purely based on fear and we know that it is going to be transitory.”

Dennis agreed with Glassman and also said that the situation could become a buying opportunity eventually.

"I am not sure if it is a buying opportunity yet though it will be a buying opportunity ultimately. The problem is we don’t know how much this thing is going to spread and as James Glassman said, the reason why the markets are very weak today is because of the clear evidence that it is spreading to other countries like Italy, Iran, South Korea and so there are increasing fears about the global nature of this virus. I think he is certainly right that ultimately the impact on the global economy will peter out, it will be reversed in time but I think the markets are well ahead of themselves. Anyways there was a lot of complacency about it," he said.

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