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Minerd Sees Covid Rivaling 1918 Flu, Predicts More Damage

Minerd Sees Covid Rivaling 1918 Flu, Predicts More Damage

Guggenheim Investments Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd said the Covid-19 pandemic will escalate to echo the worst viral outbreaks in history.

“As we head into the winter flu season, more indoor activity will likely cause cases to accelerate more, echoing the 1918 pandemic,” he wrote Thursday in a memo to clients. He added that the second wave of infections could dwarf the number seen after the initial outbreak.

Minerd Sees Covid Rivaling 1918 Flu, Predicts More Damage

The 1918 influenza pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. The current health crisis has killed more than 1 million so far.

Minerd began issuing his warnings before many of his Wall Street peers. In February, he told Bloomberg Television that the coronavirus was possibly the worst thing he’s seen in his career, and that it would be hard to imagine a scenario in which it could be contained.

A predicted surge in infections could add to the political havoc around the Nov. 3 election in the U.S., resulting in “sharp tightening in financial conditions, and a pullback in consumer spending and business investment,” he wrote.

Minerd sees deteriorating credit conditions, with as much as $300 billion of corporate debt falling below investment grade by the end of next year, as well as a stock-market decline that would create a buying opportunity. The investor deployed billions of dollars in mid-March, spending more than most on Wall Street when credit prices plummeted.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.