As I hone my social distancing skills along with almost everybody else in the world, I thought that I would share some facts and figures that I have come across while consuming all sorts of articles, blogs, web conferences and newspapers these past few days.
First, a quick PSA: IRS has pushed back the date for filing and paying your 2019 federal taxes to July 15, 2020. Yay.
First, a blunt fact: The coronavirus has altered the world’s way of life permanently. How we interact, travel, conduct conferences, buy food, take care of ourselves, etc. will all change. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. Usually, these changes are made so we don’t have a repeat of the event. Vaccines are great examples of changes that have been made in our society to prevent diseases from running rampant.
The worst thing about this virus is the uncertainty that it carries. We can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. With natural disasters and terrorism, you have the event and then you immediately start to recover. This seems more like the Great Recession in 2008 when everyone thought all banks were going bankrupt and every stock and bond price was going to zero.
Will we get through this? Yes, we will. Though the worst hasn’t hit us yet and it will take awhile for the world to get back on its feet, we will turn the corner and start to repair the damage.
I think now that both the media and the government are on board with the fact that this is serious, the public is finally starting to take the necessary actions to minimize the spread of the virus, the biggest one being social distancing, spring breakers notwithstanding. This will help “flatten the curve” and hopefully keep our healthcare system from being overrun with too many infected people at one time. The U.S. wants to follow the curve in South Korea, not Italy.
Speaking of the United States, we are testing more, which helps identify who has it and then we can isolate them from the rest of the healthy population. We are going to see a lot more confirmed cases in our biggest cities because of the high population density. For instance, the NYC area has a population density of almost 28,000 people per square mile, one of the highest in the world. So, it is not surprising to see their numbers climb.
Still, overall as a nation, we only have 94 people per square mile. This is very helpful in reducing the chance of spreading the virus throughout the entire country. For comparison, Italy has 532 people per square mile.
If you want to track the virus across the globe, there are two sites dedicated to this task:
Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard
Finally, to put the financial markets in perspective, I dusted off this old “chart” to give a big picture view of how the stock market trends over the long haul. I think the last time I brought this out was in 2008, during the darkest days of the financial crisis. Even though right now this guy might be doing the “walk the dog” trick with that yo-yo, he’s still moving onward and upward.
Stay safe and please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.
Joe Baker, CFP®
Baker Asset Management, LLC
joebaker@bakerassetmanagement.com
Great job Joe. Thank you.
LikeLike