EDITOR'S NOTE

There will come a time to bet on the coronavirus outbreak and that time may be Thursday when the World Health Organization meets to decide whether the outbreak has become a global health emergency.

If the group makes such a determination, it's time to buy - or at least that's the counterintuitive theory posited by Ned Davis Research.

The firm surveyed worldwide health emergencies - including SARS in 2003, bird flu in 2004, Ebola in 2014 and Zika in 2016 - and found that stocks typically underperform in the months preceding the official declaration of a global emergency, CNBC's Pippa Stevens writes. Then equities begin to recover and move steadily higher. 

Stocks rose Wednesday as the Federal Reserve announced its latest decision, which was to hold interest rates just where they are.

The central bank's chairman, Jerome Powell, said the Fed is monitoring the coronavirus situation and its effects on the global economy. To be sure, it's already a human tragedy: More than 6,000 people have been infected and 132 killed.

"The situation is in its early stages," Powell said, "and it's very uncertain how far it will spread."

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