# Professor Richard Sylla asserts that public perception of a crisis can be extremely consequential in financial markets

1 Faculty News February 28, 2020 ![The Atlantic logo](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/con_031336.jpg?itok=T4ciY3Gl)>

Excerpt from [The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-stock-market/607216/) -- "[Sylla’s](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/richard-sylla) view of all this as a financial historian is pretty zen. 'I wouldn’t pay much attention to the day-to-day reports of the newspapers—‘Here’s a good sign,’ ‘Here’s a bad sign,’ he said. In the short run, the stock market isn’t necessarily a good predictor of how bad the pandemic will get, in part because investors are working off the same scant information as everyone else. 'What I would say history shows you is that a problem like this takes many months and maybe even a couple of years to play itself out,' he said. But, he went on, 'Wall Street’s idea of history is the last 10 minutes.'”

[Read More](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-stock-market/607216/)