Even if the virus never makes it over here you may think how is this going to affect me?
Chinese New Year is today over there - this is their biggest holiday celebration of the year. People are on holiday for up to a month
- Most factories started shutting down over a week ago and do not start opening back up until week of Feb 10th.
- US ports will be without shipments from china from about 3/2 through 3/27 (roughly)
- Week of 4/6 probably the first time new inventory is going to be hitting DC's
Most of the Chinese factory work force actually live far away from the factories - there is a risk that the quarantines restricts a large % of the marking force from making it back from the CNY (Chinese New Year) holiday. Factories always see a drop after CNY in the work force as for many they only get to see their family a couple times a year and after having a month back home - well you can guess some decide not to return.
Why is this important/ something to watch? -> Supply chain. Most suppliers are stocked up on inventory right now to fulfill normal retail demand until the can get resupplied after CNY.
You may not remember but back with Japan that their Fukushima nuclear event Computer memory sky rocked. Sometime doubling in price as that area was home to most of the production (that is just one example)
Some times off the top of my head that might be impacted if china can not get factories up and running at full capacity
- Shoes
- Apparel
- Home goods
- Machinery (harbor freight among many others)
- Electronics
Many are saying it is spreading fast in china due to the sanitary (or lack of) conditions they live in (further out from the metro areas).... well India and Pakistan and much much worse and do not have the infrastructure that china has and it was just reported that India now has a few suspected cases....
Even if this does not have the death rate impact of the Spanish flu this keep jumping it will still affect us in some form or fashion.
Something to think on...