Emerging markets financial performance tracks Covid – MENAFN.COM

Emerging markets financial performance tracks Covid – MENAFN.COM

(MENAFN - Asia Times) Covid-19 cases worldwide reached a new record level this week, almost entirely due to a geometric rate of increase in India. The pandemic has made shambles of the notion of 'emerging markets.' Remember the acronym 'BRICs,' coined by a Goldman Sachs economist to characterize Brazil, Russia, India and China? You don't know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out, Warren Buffett likes to say. The difference between countries that have modernized down to the grass roots and countries where a thin patina of modernity sits atop a largely unchanged traditional society is evident in infection rates - and financial performance. As the chart shows, the explosion in Covid-19 infection rates came first in Turkey, now suffering 60, 000 new cases per day, compared with the previous peak of 30, 000 a day in December 2020. The Philippines reports 10, 000 new cases a day, double the previous peak of August 2020. And India's new cases now stand at nearly 300, 000 per day, triple the September 2020 peak. Of course, lack of testing capacity makes it hard to evaluate these numbers. But they are alarming by any interpretation - even before taking into account the