Investor Ray Dalio estimates the corporate losses in the U.S. from coronavirus will top $4 trillion.
“What’s happening has not happened in our lifetime before ... What we have is a crisis,” Dalio said on Thursday on CNBC.
“There will also be individuals who have very big losses... There’s a need for the government to spend more money, a lot more money,” he said.
Dalio added the fiscal stimulus package should be $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion as a minimum, depending on the form of the financial relief such as loan guarantees and credits, CNBC explained.
The founder of Bridgewater Associates also estimated the global corporate losses will amount to $12 trillion due to the pandemic.
“We are now at a point where there will have to be a debt restructuring and a monetization of that,” Dalio said. “We’re living in a different world like the 1930s in which 1930s, 1932 you have a devaluation of the dollar. You have the printing of money.”
Meanwhile, the coronavirus outbreak has forced millions of Americans to hunker down in their homes, with state and local governments escalating "social distancing" policies, closing schools, bars, restaurants and theaters in an attempt to contain the virus, Reuters explained.
The death toll in the United States from the COVID-19 illness caused by the coronavirus has topped 100 and more than 9,000 people are infected, according to a Reuters tally. Nearly 9,000 people have died across the globe and almost 219,000 have contracted the disease.
Health experts, however, say the figures are much higher given that testing is not readily available in many countries, including the United States. The virus has crippled the transportation, leisure and hospitality industries, as well as the manufacturing sector. Economists are anticipating a surge in job cuts and are predicting recession by the second quarter.
The Federal Reserve aggressively cut interest rates to near zero on Sunday, and pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in asset purchases and to backstop foreign authorities with the offer of cheap dollar financing. The Trump administration is pushing for a $1 trillion stimulus package.
Economists say the upcoming economic downturn is most likely to assume a U-shape. JPMorgan on Wednesday estimated that first- quarter gross domestic product would contract at a 4.0% annualized rate followed by an even steeper 14.0% decline in the second quarter. It forecast the economy contracting 1.8% this year and the unemployment rate rising to 5.3%.
Material from Reuters and the Associated Press has been used in this report.
© 2026 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.