we start today with an update on the coronavirus, the story that has dominated the news all week long. we welcome drew armstrong. we want to start with the change the cdc has made on how state and local entities can do their testing. what is the significance? drew: one of the big questions on the minds of health authorities is we know about a handful of cases that have been found from people who return from china. is is the virusis circulating in the united states in various regions or nationally? it is a very mild virus in most people. you're wondering is this out there and we do not know? there has not been widespread surveillance level testing and all of these tests, many of them have had to be sent to the cdc and limited to people who have a travel history in china and are showing symptoms. last night, we got news a

patient without any of the ties to china had been diagnosed. that is a first. it is a suggestion this virus might be in wider circulation. the test that has been out there, they have not been able to get this working in many places. the cdc will allow it to be modified so more state and local public health labs can do that type of work when someone has symptoms that might be this virus. you want to start doing that brought surveillance, looking for patient you might not find otherwise. david: we saw china their methodology two or three times. is there any chance the change could get false positives and contaminate the data? drew: the worry with tests like this is you want to be accurate. you want to know that when you say someone has a disease, they do have it. the way the current test works is it looks at the genetic material of the virus and tested three different ways. if all three of those are

positive, that is a positive test. you can take down the number of steps. you may lose some accuracy in doing so. you remember milder forms of coronavirus can cause a common cold. we have seen many forms of this thing. you do not want to start getting false positives. what they are saying with this case is we need to start doing this type of work and potentially flag more of these people. if you loosen the criteria of the tests, use two criteria instead of three and try to get the surveillance working more effectively. david: we heard from president trump yesterday in a news conference where he seemed to be downplaying the risks, saying it was fairly modest. at the same time the cdc says it is a great rest. is there a true difference or is it just an emphasis? drew: one of the things important to remember is the risk to an individual person is low. there are a few cases. people who do get it, the rate

of severe cases as small, the rate of fatalities is under 2%. as an individual disease, does not particularly scary. as a societal disease, it seems to be comparable with something like the flu, where you have tens of thousands of patients who may die of the disease, that is a meaningful impact. if you look at the broad impact on society, that is a plague we have to grapple with, we have just become normalized to it. david: drew armstrong who reports on health care. now we want to check in on the markets. joining us is abigail doolittle. abigail: another down day. official correction, down more than 10%. right now we are off the lows. investors searching for a bottom. what you want to see in a situation like this is a capitulation bottom. the old saying, take the stairs up, take the elevator down is true in this case. when you take the elevator down

you need to see the capitulation bottom where all of the fear is washed out and the buyers coming quickly. it felt a little bit like that today but we have not seen the buying yet. you want to see it faster. let's watch into the close. volatility, you can have big down days and pick updates followed by big down days. seems like there is more work to the downside to be done as investors grapple with what this will mean. david: what else should we be looking at? is it bonds? is it the vix? been watchingve the commodity complex, oil in particular. less liquid, selling off well ahead of stocks. investors using that is the indication of the global growth. we have also been watching the dow transports. 25%,can airlines is down that is pretty extraordinary. if you start to see a bounce in the airlines, that may suggest investors think that global

travel will be less stymied by the coronavirus. that could be a bottom. drought -- dow transports well below its 200 day moving average. the s&p 500 testing its 200 day moving average. past history suggests the s&p 500 could follow. it seems like there is more work to be done to the downside. all of it before the coronavirus does have some sort of a meaningful impact in the u.s.. we are already seeing numbers cap, global economic growth cap, really impacting these markets. david: thank you so much to abigail doolittle for that report on the markets. we want to turn to capitol hill and welcome senator mike braun, republican from indiana who serves on the health committee and the budget committee. you are in washington. we heard from president trump late yesterday. what is your assessment about where we are with respect to the united states and the coronavirus? most of us were

briefed on tuesday and the top-secret meeting. to be honest i was impressed that from the department of fdaland security, cdc, nih, , we are as prepared as any country can be. i think what has bothered me most is how it has been sensationalized in a political way. i believe we need to take this for what it is. i think it is going to be one of several instances we might confront over time. it will say do you have the infrastructure, do you have the institutions to deal with it. my real concern would be if i were the chinese government, where it all started, with the carnage economically and lives lost will be hard to measure, it has to have them really. in our case, we take it for what it is. something that has a lot of unknown variables, but i believe we are as well-prepared as any

country in the world to deal with it. it is shameful that chuck schumer does his shuffle like he does on many issues to politicize it. david: as far as united states goes, as part of what you have seen, you believe we can contain it realistically. sen. braun: we are going to be better at that than any country because we have the infrastructure to do it. so far, we have had very few cases outside of the cruise ship individuals, and thank goodness they are back in the homeland, but what has surprised me most, i guess it should not, i've been here over a year, any issue has a political angle put to it. i think what chuck schumer did in this case is shameful because he was not at the briefing on tuesday. he was out of the microphone or on the floor making statements to me that did not make sense. i think what the president has

done, assigning vice president pence as a point person for this , but mostly the institutions, the infrastructure we have in place lets us deal with this as good as any other place. under the trump administration that infrastructure has been changed. there are some people who have not been replaced. are you confident we have the people in place from the white house on down to the department of homeland security who can handle something if it does become more of an epidemic in the united states? sen. braun: i do. whenever you look at personnel changes that have been cited as may be making is not prepared. i think that has a strong political smell to it. institutions i mentioned earlier have been around for a long time. that is where you will see the difference. on the other hand, this is unknown in terms of the extrapolation of what happens. i think we will get through it

and i think in containing it and when it comes to the vaccine we are talking about, that will be done here. they are much quicker than what they used to be. we will all learn from it. sadly, with the kind of economy we have now, we will have stuff like this originate in places that we will have to deal with down the road. this is a good heads up were us and the world to maybe sharpen our skills with it. we are talking to senator mike braun. i want to go to what you just pointed to, the supply chain issue. as a result of this, there are questions about the disruption of the supply chains out of china. is it likely this will change our commercial relations around the world in the longer-term? sen. braun: i think it definitely will. when you take what we have had to deal with with china, forced technology transfers, the ip issues, princi manipulation, creating these glut and dumping

them, with tariffs, i think the president was correct, we would not have gotten their attention. this, along with the african swine fever on their pork supply, this is probably more devastating to china than any of what we grappled with to try to change their behavior. yes, the companies that have gone deeply into china with their supply chains i am sure are looking at what they do to spread their egggs into other baskets, hedge their bets. that will be the true cost of the chinese. they will have a lot of soul-searching to do about how they react to it once we get through the hysteria of the moment. david: you know business terribly well. what about the possible knock on effects in consumer confidence. there are some people that say thend the direct effects,

american consumer gets concerned and stop spending, it could hit our economy. sen. braun: that is where i have more confidence. the consumer is savvy. they have been part of it as a consumer, with household incomes that have gone up $5,000 of family since trump has been here versus $1000 from the stretch from bush through obama. this economy is hotter than it has ever been. that is what has been driving the market. that is why i think we will get some of the market back. there will be real economic loss we will not get back, but i think the consumer knows this is an outlier. it is an aberration. ,onfidence in our country confidence in the infrastructure we have to get through it. they will be watchful, but it will not disrupt what has been set into place back in 2016 with the jobs and tax cut act. all of that is driving the economy better than any other

place in the world. david: senator, appreciate your time. that is senator mike braun, republican in indiana coming to us from capitol hill. we turn now to mark crumpton here with bloomberg first word news. mark: japan will close schools nationwide to help control the spread of the coronavirus. the government said all schools were remain shut until spring holidays begin in late march. the measure affects nearly 13 million students at 35,000 schools. japan now has almost 900 cases of coronavirus, including 705 from a quarantined cruise ship. russia wants its last remaining nuclear treaty with united states to be extended. russia says there is no time --t to negotiate any trading any changes to the new start treaty that expires in february 2021. which was signed by president obama and dmitry medvedev limits each country to

know more than 250 nuclear warheads and 750 deployed missiles and bombers. demonstrators gathered for a fourth consecutive day on two greek islands to protest government plans to build new migrant detention centers. let's post and geos -- lesbos a nd chios are the main entry points for people seeking better lives in the european union. increased migrant flows have led to significant overcrowding. nearly 60 600 pedestrians were killed in the united states in 2019, the highest number in 30 years. that is according to new reports by the governors highway safety association. one potential reason is cell phone use. the report says the number of devices in active use in the u.s. has ballooned by more than 400% in the past 10 years. the report also says alcohol is also a major factor. about one third of pedestrians

killed were legally drunk. global news 24 hours a day, on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. david? david: two days until the south carolina primary. we hear from expert from the college of charleston. that is professor jordan ragusa. that is next. this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. two days until the south carolina primary.

a new pullout from monmouth university shows former vice president biden holds a substantial lead over his opponents, 20 points more than his next closest candidate, bernie sanders. we welcome associate professor and associates chair of political science at the college of houston, he is jordan ragusa. are us a sense of where you in south carolina looking forward to the democratic primary. jordan: this is certainly a key moment in the primary. we had the debate in charleston on tuesday and yesterday representative jim clyburn, the third ranking democrat in the house of representatives endorsed joe biden. as you mentioned, there is a new monmouth university poll that shows joe biden in a commanding lead. if biden can parlay the endorsement and the good debate performance into saturday, he seems like he is the odds on favorite to win the south carolina primary. then the question becomes how

does he do in the super tuesday states located largely in the south on march 3? as you say, representative clyburn's endorsement in the past has meant an awful lot to any democrat running. is it still the case that the endorsement means that much, because there is some erosion of party discipline. jordan: one of the things we did in the book is look at endorsements over time, from 1988 to the present. what we find is they do matter. candidates that do well securing endorsements prior to the primary get a noticeable bump in their performance on election day. isn it comes to clyburn, he unique in a lot of ways. there is probably no other politician in this state on either side of the aisle that has his clout. it is why the candidates work so hard to secure clyburn's endorsement.

how much it matters is difficult to put an estimate on. that monmouth university poll that just came out today, it was in the field at the time clyburn had endorsed. this biden 20 point lead does not even have clyburn's endorsement factored in. we will not know until election day how much it is worth. there is no doubt it matters for a lot. just: professor ragusa referred to a book he has co-authored called "first in the south: why the south carolina presidential primary matters." let me ask about the primary in a different way. in the past, there been reports of dirty tricks in south carolina. some played on john mccain a few years back. this year we have reports about an ad taken out using president barack obama's voice in a way that appeared to disparage vice president biden, something president obama denounced,

ordered them to cease and desist. is this a tradition in south carolina? jordan: it does seem to be a tradition in south carolina. one of the things people debate on this issue is whether it is something unique to the demographics or politics of south carolina. that is not the case. i think south carolina is in such a pivotal position on the calendar that it is make or break in ways iowa and new hampshire are not. we still have a large field for the democratic nomination. we do not have a republican contest this year. there are a few candidates whose survival depends upon a good performance in south carolina. i think that incentivizes them to go dirty. that is something we have seen in past contests. it is something we will see in future contest. david: i am also curious about the polling. there up some instances in the

past where particularly democratic candidates have done much better than the polls indicated. some suggest they may underreport older african-american voters. jordan: i am not seeing any hard data on whether that is the case were not, but it certainly seems like it would be true. the larger thing is that primaries and caucuses are very fluid environments. in general elections, we have reliable data on how people will vote. we can better estimate things like turnout, which is much higher in the general election than it is in a primary, and partner ideas is such a strong factor in general elections. since all of the people are democrats, you do not have the party id to distinguish between the candidates. the bigger thing is that primaries and caucuses are fluid. a lot of voters are still making up their minds. there is a reason why strong

debate performances matter so much. there is a reason why endorsements matter. there is a reason why media attention is such a critical component to the campaign. david: thank you so much for your time. that is professor jordan ragusa of the college of charleston. that is professor jordan ragusa of the college of charleston. still ahead, we are continuing to cover markets. stocks are sliding but are now well off their lows of the day. this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television radio. getting back to the markets, stocks are falling for the sixth consecutive day. kailey leinz is joining me with more. it seems they are off -- up from where they were. a little better. kailey: if you're an equity investor, that is good news. 1.5% for alldown of the major averages. we are flirting with correction

territory for the s&p and the dow. his toe not pretty. you're seeing volatility up. the market is trying to price whether or not it is time to buy the dip. also how is the headline risk ever and from the fundamental picture. we are getting company after company warning about the impact the virus will have on the bottom line. , whichthem is microsoft dropped its forecast. microsoft had been leading the rally which while -- why we were still having one. you're starting to see the companies that were leading the market warning and they are taking down the market. they are down 3%. david: it feels like every day we have one or two more. there is a report that the kansas city fed district is now reporting 40% of the manufacturers they pulled have negative effects from the coronavirus. that is across the heartland. kailey: this is intact, this is in retail, this is across the board. you have strategist saying we are not going to see any

earnings growth for s&p 500 companies this year. that is a drastic prediction if you're a fundamental equity investor. hard to make the case to buy the dip if you're not going to see profit growth. that is what equity investors are contending with. you see the continued bit out of equities into the likes of bonds. longerinterest rates go so the equities do better. kailey: in theory. david: many thanks to kailey leinz for that report on the markets. up next, we see what the coronavirus is doing to the equity market. what will it do to the global economy? we ask mary lovely of the peterson institute. this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. ♪

[ fast-paced drumming ] [ fast-paced drumming ]

from new york, this is "balance of power." i am david westin. we go now to mark crumpton.

mark: expanding coronavirus testing across the country. the cdc and the food and drug administration say they will allow state and local health labs to modify a test for the virus that has been plagued by weeks of delays. the change should speed testing and allow labs to begin using hundreds of kids that were sent out earlier this month, rather than wait for a new version to be sent. vice president pence has selected the top aides officials join the coronavirus response team. deborah burks was nominated by former president obama in 2014 as he was global aids coordinator to oversee humanitarian aid programs combating the epidemic. she also served as head of the global hiv/aids division at the cdc, and president trump wednesday that pens would lead the response to the coronavirus. australian timothy weeks was held captive for three years by the taliban is in qatar for the

signing of a peace deal between the u.s. and the taliban. he was abducted in couple in 2016 while working as a professor at the american university of afghanistan, along with american kevin king. weeks says he was invited to saturday signing ceremony by the taliban. the plan to add a third runway at london's heathrow airport faces more delays. environmentalists won a court appeal over an expansion at europe's busiest airport. heathrow says it needs the extra runway to compete with rival hubs. says it will appeal. global news, 24 hours a day, on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is "bloomberg." david: at first we were told the reaction to the coronavirus would likely be short, limited

to the first quarter and with a v-shaped recovery but it is not looking that way anymore. we welcome now mary lovely, senior fellow at the peterson institute for international economics and professor of economics at the maxwell school of citizenship and public affairs. professor, thank you for being with us. you are not a fortune but an economist. how do we go about figuring out what is the analogy? what should we expect from the coronavirus? >> obviously, no one knows where this is going so we have to have a range of estimates. right now they are the wide. they could be anywhere from 100 billion to 1.1 trillion depending on where this virus stays mainly contained in china or becomes a pandemic. each day we find new outbreaks, new clusters of the virus, we have to say we are headed board for the upside in terms of the losses to the global economy. we havehen -- david:

the supply chain problem but also people not buying things because they are confined to quarters, as it were. >> yes. an economist here at the peterson institute, former chief economist for the imf, has reminded people that the largest economic losses will be, he believes, from the demand-side -- which has an impact on the supply side. let's think about what happens when we have to close a school. parents are unable to get to their jobs. for one people are afraid to take subways, which are one of the lifeblood's american cities. people will stop purchasing personal services entertainment, tourism. these cost can mount quickly. david: what sectors do you look at first? obviously, travel is being hit hard. we are also hearing about restaurant, discretionary consumer spending, things like that. >> absolutely we will see it in

all of these services. in terms of supply chain, the first effect has been on things like auto parts, furniture, and fixtures. building supplies. we have seen it in pharmaceuticals, chemicals. things that china is a huge supplier to the rest of the world for. within the chinese economy, there is been a huge slow down in the service sector. many of those are small, very small companies. family-owned businesses. i think we will see a lot of people having to close their businesses. urban unemployment as a result of that. however, it is very possible that china is turning the corner and those losses will start to mount up in new sites, particularly right now and south korea and increasingly in italy. this week alone, syracuse university is pulling his students out of florence, as a stanford university, nyu. that is just the beginning of

the type of exodus that we will see from sites that are hit hard by covid-19. david: what can be done about it? particularly, what can governments do always lead besides the public health issues that we are all addressing? it will -- were all looking to the fed, hanging on every word they say. is this something that monetary policy can even help with? well, stimulating the economy after the worst part of the viruses over is going to be very important. china is already announcing spending plans in each of its major cities. fiscal policy as well as monetary. monetary authorities have been warning us for a long time, there is very little policy space. interest rates are already extremely low. we are seeing them go lower as we see a flight toward u.s. treasuries, so it is going to have to be two hands.

there is going to have to be a fiscal stimulus as well if this virus continues to spread to other parts of the world. david: even if there isn't much ammunition or tools left in the toolbox, whatever analogy what use, it is not keeping the markets from already discounting and more that cuts. >> yes. that is certainly something that we are likely to see. there is a little bit of policy space. i think the question is, will it be a nap? the chinese who are on the front line on this have said they will maintain their projected growth rate, which would be anywhere percent site and 6.8% side. -- and 6% side, but that will be large stimulus. that will add to debt problems that already exist. it will be difficult on firms, as you said, even as workers get back in place. there is still the issue of lost demand, which will never be

recovered. it will take some time for people to have the confidence to get back out there into the shopping malls and the restaurants in the movie theaters. david: professor, what is the risk there could be further damaged on to the notion of globalization? it was already having a rocky time with the trade disputes. is there prospect that perhaps people will change their supply chains permanently? >> that is a very interesting question. i think we will learn a lot from this episode. we have been studying the china-u.s. trade war to see what had happened. chain,-- in the supply companies that had factories in multiple different locations were able to shift production from one location to another. that is possible as long as the virus is constrained. once the virus moves, it appears

that basically, no location is really "safe." in that sense, it is very difficult to see how a ceo will think, oh, just moving operations out of china will make me safe. to the extent this becomes a global phenomenon, i really hate to use the word pandemic, but if it does become a pandemic, it is not clear that it will disadvantage any one particular country because it will just argue, and a sense, for diversification. david: professor, very helpful today. mary lovely come senior fellow at the peterson institute for economics and washington. coming up, are we living and a decadent society? that is the thesis of ross douthat's new book. that is next. this is "balance of power." ♪

this is "balance of power." i am david westin. change has become a commonplace with what seems like a revolution in technology and politics and society, coming with what feels like increasing rapidity. new york times columnist ross douthat has taken a fresh look at the developed world over the last 50 years concluding that desk concluding it is an illusion. closer to running around in a circle, albeit maybe faster and faster. he has written about it in his new book "the decadent society: how we became the victims of our own success." great to have you here. one of the great things about this book, is specifically dates when we became a decadent society. i am old enough to remember watching a man land on the moon. that was it. >> that is sort of the

convenient peak that i start with. the argument in the book is basically if you go back to 1969 and trace the developed world forward from there, you get economic deceleration, sort of trending toward stagnation -- rego from 5% or 6% growth to 2% growth. you get technological stagnation everywhere except the tech world. obviously, iphones, give indications, virtual reality. we have had real innovation there. energy, transportation, a whole host of other things, have not delivered what people expected. then you have a world of declining birth rates, western societies are getting older. our politics -- i think this part of decadence everyone can recognize, they are stalemated and gridlocked and don't work particularly well. this is maybe the more subjective thing, but i think there has been repetition, too, the fact we are here in 2020 with our big blockbuster movie

being essentially a remake of "return of the jedi." suggesting we are still living and the cultural world that the baby boomers made. it is not collapse or crisis, but it is not quite the future we were promised 50 years ago. david: to indulge me as a baby boomer -- >> a fine generation. david: it did not feel like a very good time. we assassinated a president, would be president, a civil rights legend. we were burning our cities and marching the streets to get to a very popular war in asia. points,is one of the can the book, there is a case for decadence in the sense that a decadent society is more because it is older and a little more stagnant. it is a little more stable, little less violent, little safer than the world you came of age and. if you look back at the 1960's, they are a time of dynamism and danger the same time, an era

transformative political reform and also 2000 terrorist bombings like there were in the u.s. from 1971-19 ebony too. it is not that we should look at decadence and say, this is the end of the world and things have gotten worse, it is more that they have gotten safer but also less creative. an example from the world of teenagers. teenagers now have safer lives, certainly, then when you were a kid and even when i was a kid. they're less likely to drive drunk, less likely to have sex early, less likely to get pregnant, less likely to use drugs. they are more likely to be on their phones or playing video games, and more likely to be depressed, anxious, and suicidal. as far as we can tell, they may be less likely to form relationships, get married, and have kids. this is the trade-off of decadence. he basically makes a safer and calmer, but also maybe less creative, dynamic, and sometimes less happy. david: i wonder if part of your

thesis depends on what is the denominator you pick? you pick the developed world. if you take the world overall, another way to look at what is happening is a north to south transfer, that in fact there is more of an evening out then -- 1969s back in 1968 between the haves and have-nots. >> decadence as i describe it is a western europe, united states, to some extent pacific rim, japan, south korea phenomenon. it has not been -- you might describe the middle east right now as chaotic and convulsing. he would not call it decadent. china's growth rate of the last 25 years, certainly not decadent. there has been this convergence of rising powers with a stagnating west. i think the question is, is there someone who is poised to leapfrog the west? is china really going to sort of blast passed us and lead the world into a pacific century, or

is there something about decadence that is the destination that a lot of these -- i mean, even countries that were supposed to be growing rapidly, turkey and south africa, have stagnated a bit the closer they have gone to the west. david: you mentioned political transformation. many would say donald j. trump is a form of political transformation. we have not seen his like before. do you agree? >> yes and no. trump is clearly someone in certain ways is decadent himself, obviously, but also sort of a rebel against decadence. make america great again is a slogan that basically says, the future was supposed to be better and we need to get back to the future that was promised. in that sense, he is a different and novel figure, but look at the trump era in terms of actual policymaking. it is pretty barren. he had one big tax cut that sort of -- a version of what george

w. bush or ronald reagan would have done but all of the things that trump promised the massive new infrastructure program, the amazing beautiful obamacare replacement, have it happen. what trump has mostly delivered is a lot of energy and fodder for people and our line of work to argue about. i think that is sort of the dynamic easy with bernie sanders. david: subconscious desire for society, appears to be revolutionary, like a donald trump or bernie sanders. >> people are discontinued was sort of stagnant prosperity. they want something different and better, to some extent, but they also are cautious and like the programs they have and don't want them to change. you see this repeating pattern in the western world where you have populist rebellions and then the populist come to power and they may not actually know what to do with the power and sort of the forces stalemate and reassert themselves. it is possible to imagine bernie sanders winning and then

governing not that differently from the way joe biden would come even though biden is the candidate a sustainable decadence and bernie is the candidate of revolution. david: is china decadent? if you take the same time -- same timeframe, china has been growing. basically, we have been stagnating. >> you would not say that about china over the last 30 years. you would say they are not decadent. the question for china that is getting a really strong test at the moment is whether they basically have a ceiling on their progress, where they are going to end up starting to stagnate. you have seen over the last five or 10 years their amazing growth rates, no, have settled down a bit. they are not growing quite as fast as south korea -- as korea and japan. same demographic issues that the western world does, and now they're getting an

incredible test of the stability of their systems. in five or 10 years, i think we will know more i whether china joins us in decadent or something more dramatic happens. david: we did not get to demographics or fertility. times"uthat, "new york columnist and author of "the decadent society." this is "balance of power." ♪

david: this is "balance of power." typewriter check on the markets. stocks are sliding a bit and seem to be headed for somewhat of a comeback. we will find out from abigail doolittle. spokel: earlier when we this hour, we were talking about the possibility of capitulation of stocks.

the indexes were down more than 3%. take a look. the dow transport slightly higher. a lot of people have looked past her, but the airlines are big tell on the coronavirus fears plus they have been leading all the way down since january with the lows down more than 50%. that may be some real hope. technically, a lot of reasons to think there is more work to be done to the downside. david: we keep talking about capitulation. how do we know? >> if you asked the question, he probably has not happen because typically it is such a fearful panic selling, takes everybody out by surprise. it washes all of the "we can't" and the buying power. people don't believe it. if you're even asking the question, it probably is not there yet. relative to those technicals on the s&p 500, looking at 3000 2900 and the best support is below 2700. whether or not we go there, it

is hard to say. something worth thinking about with the coronavirus, we have a lot of companies cutting their outlooks for sales and profits based on what is happening in asia. we have not had meaningful cases of the coronavirus in the u.s. based on what we're hearing this week, the cdc thing when not if, new testing which could show clusters. if that should happen, can suggest not just fear in terms of selling, but also more cuts to the corporate profit outlook. it seems there are too many unknowns for investors to have everything priced in. we simply don't know what everything is at this point. david: thank you so much, abigail. the coronavirus urging its tentacles into communities all around the world and into businesses and financial markets and now turns out it may be even affecting u.s. relations with north korea stop as the u.s. announces postponement of joint military exercises with south korea. with kimacerbated jong-un. bill, we have announced we will

not have the joint exercises and part because i believe there is some coronavirus even with u.s. troops over there. >> we have at least one u.s. soldier based in south korea who tested positive for the coronavirus. just to keep the chances of transmission down, the u.s. and south korea are looking at scaling back even the already limited number of joint military exercises that they have been doing the last couple of years, really, since president trump started his outreach to kim jong-un and north korea. david: looks like we won't have those type military exercises. north korea is a bit distracted, concerned about being on the border with china. >> right. they have two problems. on the northern border with china and southern border with south korea where there has also been a noticeable outbreak will stop on both sides -- and north korea is a real blackhole when it comes to transparency. it is likely not to be reported well if not at all.

it may not be something we know about till long after it happens. david: you cover national security quite closely. what is the was doing among -- what is the u.s. doing about the troops? it strikes me it could be a place where he could have a lot of contagion, potentially. >> they're trying to limit the movement of u.s. forces trying to keep them a little more isolated and barracks and trying to limit the arrival and travel of dependence of those forces. about 28,000 u.s. troops, a large contingent. they are quite, honestly, quite cautious about having that spread through their forces and go into the military at large with people traveling between the u.s. and south korea. >> do we have any sense with everything is going on right now the white house by our military authorities on the potential effect of coronavirus? >> what we know is president

trump has put the northern command here in the united states in charge of coordinating the u.s. military's response to the coronavirus. that would include everything to just making sure there are beds available for americans who get evacuated back to the u.s., for instance, like from the cruise ship of japan to trying to deal with the military's role if there is a wider outbreak. david: thank you, bill, reporting from washington. coming up, "balance of power" continues on radio. we will talk to jim clyburn about his endorsement of joe biden ahead of saturday's primary down in south carolina. this is "balance of power." ♪

>> gold, silver palladium, oh my, we dig into the right metal to buy for safety. some call u.s. oil companies uninvestable and we talked to one investor. exports. of u.s. l&g i sit down to see which projects will get built and which ones won't and natural gas prices go below two dollars. ♪ ♪ alix: welcome to