Stocks Suffer Worst Week Since Financial Crisis Amid Coronavirus Fears

Corona beer has been hit, too.

In early January, when Constellation Brands announced a $40 million marketing campaign for its new Corona Hard Seltzer, coronavirus had not yet been tied to any deaths.

Now Corona beer is suffering from the similarity between its name and the coronavirus (so called because the spikes on its surface recall a crown, or corona in Latin). Google searches linking “beer,” “Corona” and “virus” surged as reports of infections increased. In the past month, 61 percent of Twitter posts mentioning Corona beer included discussion of coronavirus, according to Sprout Social, a social media management company.

Constellation Brands’ shares are down more than 18 percent this week.

Maggie Bowman, a spokeswoman for Corona, said in a statement that “there’s a good amount of misinformation out there,” adding that sales remain strong and “consumers, by and large, understand there’s no linkage between the virus and our business.”

Hand sanitizers are selling out.

On Amazon, popular brands like Purell, Germ-X and even Amazon’s own private-label Solimo were largely unavailable on Friday. What was available was coming from third-party sellers at what appears to be higher prices. For instance, a pack of two 12-fluid-ounce bottles of Purell was being offered on Friday morning by a third-party seller for as much as $49.99.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.

Late Thursday, a spokeswoman for GoJo Industries, a small company based in Akron, Ohio, that claims to have invented Purell in 1988, said in an emailed statement the company had increased production significantly to meet the increased demand for Purell and other products.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus.html