If Coronavirus Were a Public Company...

Update to strategic view -- ASIA MACRO: Markets understood quickly that Wednesday’s huge spike in new coronavirus cases was the result of a methodological change. Treating the change as a public company would under GAAP, we create a restated time-series of daily new confirmed cases. We see that there have been more new cases every day than previously reported, but Wednesday’s spike goes away. New cases have been generally declining for the last week or so, or at least plateauing. The latest data yesterday confirms this approach. It is a positive that China has admitted that there are more cases than previously reported. Willingness to lose face in that way is a token of China’s serious commitment to rein in COVID-2019.