KPBS anchor Maya Trabulsi and BottomLine Marketing co-founder and SDSU marketing lecturer Miro Copic discuss some of the week’s top business stories.
Q: A massive drop in stocks because of the coronavirus this week. It’s in fact a historic sell-off and being called the worst streak since the 2008 financial crisis. Could this level out this week?
A: This week has been historic. The market's down almost 13 percent today. Fortunately, it didn't go down as much. There was a big rally at the very end of the day today. The driver is that a lot of companies are announcing that all their earnings are going to be impacted in this first quarter of the year, which really spooked the market. So far, we're in correction territory for the stock market. The correction is anytime the market goes down by 10 percent. Today, we're about almost 13 percent for this week. But the speed at which this has happened is huge. Now, some of the reasons why is because of the uncertainty of what's happening worldwide.
The Chinese have changed the way they report the Coronavirus, so that creates an opaqueness there. The United States did a very poor job this week at saying how they would handle the crisis. Nobody knows how long this may go on. This can go on. It can be handled or contained over the next couple of weeks. But the likelihood is it's going to carry on to the next couple of quarters. So the sooner this happens, it gets resolved, the better.
And it even impacts our everyday lives, even if you like music. Today, K-pop band BTS and rock band Green Day both canceled tours in Asia. So it's impacting everybody.
RELATED: Wall Street’s Brutal Week Slashed Nearly 3,600 Points From Dow
Q: For those of us with money in stocks, especially 401(k) retirement accounts, what should we keep in mind as this continues to play out?
A: The interesting thing here is that this is really a panic that was the fear of the unknown. This is an external shock that doesn't affect the basic way our economy works. In 2008, there was a major systemic-wide, structural problem with the financial services sector, insurance, real estate that has been fixed either through legislation or better practices. Those stocks have recovered. The fundamentals of companies haven't changed.
So some stock analysts might say now might actually be a time to buy. But probably what most investors should be is just keep watching, see how the reports are coming out and don't worry just yet.
The good news is that global health officials have worked really hard at being transparent, trying to contain this. And if you have this kind of global effort, it'll probably, you know, the likelihood it'll be contained is relatively high, hopefully, sooner rather than later.
RELATED: Coronavirus Stock Crash Impact On Your Retirement & Financial Planning
Q: If you're a Padres fan, you're probably not very happy with the recent news. It's going to be a little harder to stream the Padres. What's happening with Fox Sports San Diego?
A: Fox Sports San Diego is not going to be on YouTube TV. The two sides, that YouTube TV and then Sinclair Broadcasting, which bought Fox Sports Network from Disney, when Disney bought a lot of the Fox Network assets last year, couldn't come to terms. Now, it's kind of a little bit of finger-pointing, he said, she said. Sinclair says they actually lower the rates. YouTube TV said the rates are up. So in this case, somebody like a YouTube TV or these other streaming services, the cost of carrying sports is extraordinarily expensive.
ESPN is the number one priced channel on every platform, being over a dollar per unit. So it becomes a real challenge when there's price negotiations. And hopefully, YouTube TV and all these other streaming services will deem that Fox Sports San Diego is worth it because Padre fans are going to want to watch.
RELATED: YouTube TV puts Padres fans in dark, drops Fox Sports San Diego
