We quantify the exposure of major financial markets to news shocks about global contagion risk while accounting for local epidemic conditions. For a wide cross section of countries, we construct a novel dataset comprising (i) announcements related to COVID19 and (ii) high-frequency data on epidemic news diffused through Twitter (Hassan et al., 2019’s methodology). We provide novel empirical evidence about financial dynamics both around epidemic announcements and at daily/intra-daily frequencies. Analysis of contagion data and social media activity about COVID19 suggest that the market price of contagion risk is significant.

The slope carry takes a long (short) position in the long-term bonds of countries with steeper (flatter) yield curves. The traditional carry takes a long (short) position in countries with high (low) short-term rates. We document that: (i) the slope carry return is slightly negative (strongly positive) in the pre (post) 2008 period, whereas it is concealed over longer samples; (ii) the traditional carry return is lower post-2008; and (iii) expected global growth and inflation declined post-2008. We connect these findings through an equilibrium model in which countries feature heterogeneous exposure to news shocks about global output and global inflation .