Stock Market Selloff—Not Coronavirus, But the Manufacturing Complex

Coronavirus looks to me like a trigger rather than a cause.

Why would that be?

For one, a market within which

stocks we once valued at 20 times earnings now trade at 300+ earnings and that’s

not rational, but it has its own dynamics. The world is awash in money as that

infamous 1% rake in all the cash on the table.

You can write a book about why that’s

true—and I imagine many already have—but no matter who has it, cash has to find

a home and the most convenient home is stocks. The US exchanges and the US

dollar are also the safest currency and best regulated exchanges.

Voila—we’ve found the Yellow

Brick Road and the Wizard of Oz is snugly ensconced behind his

curtain.

But that doesn’t answer the trigger question. Why

coronavirus? For two reasons.