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Bird Flu Fears Ripple Through Market
Wednesday May 24, 3:52 pm ET
By Stan Choe, AP Business Writer
Analysts Say Retail, Real Estate and Tourism Companies Most at Risk if Pandemic Happens
NEW YORK (AP) -- Investor fears of avian flu, which started in Asia and other emerging markets, rippled through to U.S. markets and helped drag down many stocks Wednesday.
"Asian markets took this seriously and started the sell-off," said David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, a New Jersey-based money management firm supervising about $800 million in assets.
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"In the last 48 hours, the global market players have started paying attention to bird flu, because it's suddenly front-page news."
Concern over avian flu has been rising since Monday, when the sixth person out of seven in an extended family in Indonesia to catch the disease died.
Observers worry family members may have passed the disease between themselves rather than catching it from poultry, but the World Health Organization left its pandemic alert level unchanged Wednesday.
Kotok said his firm has begun to pull out of some equities and into cash, in preparation for a possible avian flu pandemic. The most likely losers in such an outcome would be retailers, restaurants and travel- and tourism-related companies, he said. Possible winners -- or those least likely to be hurt -- are health care companies working on treatments or technology companies, because frightened people are likely to spend more time in the office than at shopping malls, he said.
Bear Stearns in March issued a report saying a worst-case scenario of a bird flu pandemic could mean big losses for real estate, hotel and commercial banking companies. Electric utilities and biotechnology companies, though, could benefit.
The firm based its research on the market's reaction to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, epidemic of 2003.
On the New York Stock
Wednesday May 24, 3:52 pm ET
By Stan Choe, AP Business Writer
Analysts Say Retail, Real Estate and Tourism Companies Most at Risk if Pandemic Happens
NEW YORK (AP) -- Investor fears of avian flu, which started in Asia and other emerging markets, rippled through to U.S. markets and helped drag down many stocks Wednesday.
"Asian markets took this seriously and started the sell-off," said David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, a New Jersey-based money management firm supervising about $800 million in assets.
ADVERTISEMENT
"In the last 48 hours, the global market players have started paying attention to bird flu, because it's suddenly front-page news."
Concern over avian flu has been rising since Monday, when the sixth person out of seven in an extended family in Indonesia to catch the disease died.
Observers worry family members may have passed the disease between themselves rather than catching it from poultry, but the World Health Organization left its pandemic alert level unchanged Wednesday.
Kotok said his firm has begun to pull out of some equities and into cash, in preparation for a possible avian flu pandemic. The most likely losers in such an outcome would be retailers, restaurants and travel- and tourism-related companies, he said. Possible winners -- or those least likely to be hurt -- are health care companies working on treatments or technology companies, because frightened people are likely to spend more time in the office than at shopping malls, he said.
Bear Stearns in March issued a report saying a worst-case scenario of a bird flu pandemic could mean big losses for real estate, hotel and commercial banking companies. Electric utilities and biotechnology companies, though, could benefit.
The firm based its research on the market's reaction to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, epidemic of 2003.
On the New York Stock
