The market has come back considerably from the COVID-19-induced fall, and it has many people scratching their heads. The real world doesn’t look so great: we have witnessed civil unrest, record unemployment claims, and a pandemic, and the S&P 500 somehow broke into positive territory for the year. Is it too far too fast?
Oil is not an investment. A barrel of oil is just a barrel of oil. If one were to bury it in his backyard and dig it up many years later, it is still just a barrel of oil. This past Monday, the oil dug up backyards sold for ~negative $40; they had to pay for someone to take it away.
The market hates uncertainty. I hate that phrase. News flash: the future is unknowable and therefore always uncertain. There is never more or less uncertainty; there is always 100 percent uncertainty. The reason past crises appear more certain than this one is because they are in the past. Hindsight is 20/20, foresight is nowhere close.
Here we go again. The market has broken through the barrier and we are now officially in a bear market. Markets like this are always scary, but everyone should be reminded that we have a plan, and this too shall pass.
“[T]he only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt.
This quote is truer today than at any time I can recall in my career. The coronavirus itself will pale in comparison to the damage done by the fear of the coronavirus.
