Just as investors were beginning to feel somewhat positive -- the economy was at least bottoming, and possibly showing early signs of turning around -- swine flu has appeared and put the global economy under its own stress test.

The Obama administration declared a public health emergency Sunday because of the flu outbreak. So far officials have confirmed cases in New York, Texas, California and Kansas. Globally there have been cases of the same strain of the deadly flu, which is suspected in the deaths of 103 people in Mexico, as far as New Zealand.

One after another, sectors, markets and companies affected by the flu's consequences have exhibited symptoms -- good or bad.

BloggingStocks and DailyFinance have more:

• Don't fear the swine flu . . . trade it
• Airlines could suffer thanks to a potential swine flue epidemic
• Analyst warns Visa/Mastercard could be smacked by swine flu
• Swine flu: Outbreak takes its toll in the oil patch
• Fear of flu epidemic hurts stocks, helps some drug companies
• What would a swine flu pandemic do to the economy?

Markets contract swine flu originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.