By Bill Witherell, Ph.D.
Beginning in late 2019 through the first half of January, stocks in Asia (excluding Japan), led by the Chinese market, rallied, outperforming most other equity markets. However, the region is now challenged by the spread of a new coronavirus originating in China. With an exponential increase in the number of infected cases in China and cases spreading to a number of countries around the world, this is clearly a major public health concern. The increasingly strict measures being taken to minimize the proliferation of the disease mean that the economic effects