Westchester County Business Journal 030920

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PRINT JOURNALISM: BECAUSE IT STILL MATTERS. MARCH 9, 2020 VOL. 56, No. 10

westfaironline.com

Investors were frustrated with Wall Street’s performance at the end of February.

How much money did you lose?

INSIDE

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COVID-19 ARRIVES IN WESTCHESTER

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JACK WELCH DIES AT 84

REGENERON RACES AGAINST THE CLOCK IN CORONAVIRUS CRISIS BY PETER KATZ pkatz@westfairinc.com

GABELLI: ‘EARNINGS PROJECTIONS WILL COME DOWN’ BY PETER KATZ pkatz@westfairinc.com

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ust hours before President Donald Trump told a South Carolina rally of his followers that the stock market loss in reaction to the coronavirus crisis and what was being said about it was a Democrat political hoax and news media scheme to hurt him, three local financial profession-

als were giving the Business Journal insights about what was happening. In the final trading days of February, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped about 12% as the COVID-19 virus continued to spread. The estimated loss in wealth globally during that period was $6 trillion with $4 trillion of the loss attributable to the U.S. March opened with a 1,294 rise in the Dow on March 2, followed by a drop

of 785 points on the following day despite the Federal Reserve announcing an emergency interest-rate cut of one-half percentage point. As of March 4, the novel coronavirus had spread to 82 countries. The worldwide count of cases had risen to 94,343 with 3,222 deaths. There were nine deaths reported in the U.S. The commentary was provided by: Mario Gabelli, chairman and CEO of Gamco Investors, Inc., which is based in Rye; David Nelson, chief strategist of Belpointe Asset Management in Greenwich, Connecticut; and Matthew Carey, director of the Center for Financial Markets Studies and the LaPenta-Lynch Trading Floor at the Iona » CORONAVIRUS

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TA R RYTOW N - B AS E D REGENERON IS WORKING TO FIND A DRUG that has the

potential to not only protect a person against the COVID-19 coronavirus but also to treat a person who is already infected, the company’s founder, president and CEO told President Donald Trump during a March 2 meeting at the White House. Regeneron’s Leonard S. Schleifer was one of several heads of research and pharmaceutical companies invited to a meeting of the president’s Coronavirus Task Force in the Cabinet Room. Vice President Mike Pence, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, were among those attending the meeting.

In early February, Regeneron reached an expanded agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop new treatments for combating the coronavirus that has been spreading around the world at increasing speed. Regeneron is collaborating with HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). During the meeting, Trump pressed the heads of the companies to promise a quick timeline for putting a vaccine into production. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the task force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had previously told the president that it would take a year to 18 months to invent a vaccine, do clinical trials and, if it actually » REGENERON

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