Some Quick Thoughts

Here are some things I've either been seeing or thinking about recently.

First the markets.  Back in March when things were rapidly falling a part I had clients,  friends, family and acquaintances ask me if they should sell.  Some even advocated going completely to cash.  If you want my thoughts on that back then, skip below and read any of my March columns.  I'll summarize for you and say that I wasn't keen on that idea.  Now though markets have clawed back a substantial portion of those losses in a relatively short period of time.  Given what's occurred and given where we are in the market year, now would be a good time to review your portfolio allocations.  None of my longer-term views have changed but if you were worried or nervous back in March then April gave you a gift to review and reallocate assets.  Not saying I know what's going to come next or that the markets are going to go down.  I am saying that investors are in a much better position to reallocate assets now that prices have appreciated to some extent then they might have been back in March.

Panic is not a strategy but then neither is having no strategy for what you might want to do when the markets recover.

While I think it's going to take some time for us to get back on our feet, my guess is the pundits are going to be surprised when things get going a bit quicker in the coming months than they're estimating right now.  There's a lot of pent up demand out there.

Speaking of demand I think most of us are resigned that it's gong to take some time for us to get on top of this disease.  However, humans adapt, look how quickly we're adapting to masks and new rules in grocery stores.  The real key for how quickly things come back on line is going to be giving people confidence they can go do things again with a lower probability of catching the virus.  There are ways you can play golf and tennis that lower the probability of catching Covid.  Grocery stores are developing methods to lower that same probability.  As other businesses do the same thing then the public will feel more confident about going out and spending money.

Back Monday.