Positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on the international firms

Global companies have been affected by the appearance of the novel Coronavirus in a number of ways, some of which have suffered from very large losses, the global markets have been affected negatively by the virus and panic dominate most of the shareholders due to the large decline in stock prices, which is the largest since the Global financial crisis in 2008, for example the financial markets in Gulf countries, recorded major losses due to the catastrophic decline in crude oil prices.

Drug and medical supplies companies have benefited from the panic that controls the people around the world, which causes increasing the prices of the protective masks, disinfection materials, and cleansing products, as an example Clorox company stocks prices increased dramatically, and the sales of thermometer devices increased in an imaginary way, because of the high demand of the authorities in most of the countries of the world for it to measure the temperature of returnees from abroad or the travelers between cities as a preliminary test for virus detection, despite the repeated statements from medical authorities that these devices are not enough to be sure that the person is infected. At the same time, some technological companies have invested the disease outbreak for their benefit, such as Google, which provided a G Suite to help companies and individuals to work remotely, through their educational package that includes hangout meet and google classroom, in addition to the educational sector, Google has provided support to companies and most of the companies have modified their work policies to suit the remote work and limit the spread of the virus, while Microsoft changed its annual conference, which is scheduled to be held next May to a digital conference.

Travel and quarantine restrictions which was imposed by most of the countries affected hundreds of millions of workers in the factories of international companies that operates in China, and they lacked the necessary labor efforts and spare parts, which led to the disruption of supply chains worldwide. The prices of basic commodities decreased due to the reduction in China's consumption of raw materials, which pushed Manufacturers to reduce production rates, and this put pressure on multinational companies in many sectors, including aviation, studying outside, infrastructure, tourism, entertainment, hospitality, electronics, consumer goods and luxuries. most global technology companies including Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Amazon suffered from losses in about millions of dollars Because of fears of the Coronavirus epidemic. The future of the markets and companies is in the hands of the “novel Coronavirus”, which is already manipulating all markets, not just the stock prices; Therefore the rise of market indicators and the return of stock prices to its normal profit levels is directly related to finding a solution for the current situation which means finding a final solution to COVID-19.