World Crisis scenarios for the 21st century - Bird Flu (H5N1) and other pandemic Virus concerns (update 6)

World Crisis scenarios for the 21st century - Bird Flu (H5N1) and other pandemic Virus concerns (update 6)

As the WHO organization lifts the crisis to level 4 (or a scale of 6) closer to a pandemic. The problem with this out break as opposed to the bird flu or even the SARS out break in 2003. Is this flu epidemic has spread quickly and killed more people in a shorter period of time. The other main fear is the virus spreads human to human like SARS very quickly, with bird flu it is still containable due to the animal to human viral constraints, so a quick response and destruction of infected livestock can be done quickly.

Markets reacted as they would with falls in the US and Asia albeit more muted falls in Europe. Still if you have been following this blog for awhile, I did indicate that a crisis like this could emerge soon. This is why I have shifted some of my stocks to bigger pharmaceuticals and solid biotech companies. I did this at the start of the year when the share prices were cheap. Although these rallies could end up falling back on profit taking, if we do move to Stage 5 or even Stage 6 (Pandemic), you will see some major gains in pharmaceuticals and biotech stocks.

Rise in Biotech ('red' index) stocks, a speculative buy as the market looks at 'crisis' stocks.


But with the investments aspect aside the reality of this virus is that it could effect everyone. With fragile economies who are far from recovering, a pandemic could be a severe blow to business and livelihood; not to mention even more strain for already broke countries.