Coronavirus prompts a change in forecasts

• "U.S. companies will generate no earnings growth in 2020," wrote David Kostin, Goldman's chief U.S. equity strategist, despite a consensus forecast from Wall Street that still calls for earnings to climb 7% this year.
• "We have cut our 2020 global growth forecast to 2.8% (from 3.2%). This would be the lowest reading since 2009," economists at Bank of America added, saying it would also be the first time since the financial crisis that it was expected to be under 3%.
• "Cases of the new coronavirus disease are rising quickly outside China, and the odds of the outbreak turning into a pandemic have now doubled - from 20% to 40%," according to a report from Moody's Analytics.