Brace Yourselves for Coronavirus 1.5
The stock market sold off yesterday on the same news we’ve heard all week, when it didn’t care. The pandemic is accelerating as lockdown measures are lifting, go figure, and that’s halted the bullish raucous. This was a risk worth running according to our world leaders, most challenged with imminent social and economic catastrophe, but a risk it is!
The governor of Texas described the outbreak in his state as “massive.” It might not matter. Name a world leader immune to commitment bias who doesn’t find it hard to retreat after making their position on something public. This is the bearish take.
The bullish take is that we’re more prepared this time. We have more ventilators, we have more hospital beds. We don’t know much about this virus, but we do know something. In fact, some vaccines are into their final test phases, and pharmaceuticals and biotech lab investors were greedy yesterday while the rest of the market was fearful.
You would think that wherever you’re from, the government must have a paper binder somewhere with information about what to do in a pandemic. You know, the files to avert the worst. So have we done that? Are we still doing that? What is the “worst” according to the binder? Is it related to death count, votes, dollars? Bring us the binder!
We’re getting sidetracked. The fact of the matter is that coronavirus isn’t gone, and might not be for a while. The trade war is revamping, markets are extremely uncertain, and investors are trimming their winnings.
A second outbreak is easier to predict than a second market crash, but expect more days like yesterday. The volatile month ahead is about to put your investing skills to the test. This is what we train for!
