Post & Comment (09.24.20}

I haven't run one of these columns for awhile.  This is a section of posts where I respond in brief comments to something I've seen in the news or online.  I've highlighted the headline note or post.

On Testing.

Testing is the key to reopening the economy.  To get things moving again you have to convince people who have money that it's safe to go out and spend it.  *Abbot Laboratories has recently told us they have a rapid test now that's 97% accurate.  You get the test and you have the results downloaded to their Navica App {which I have downloaded and is pretty cool}.  That way you can maybe in a few months time in the winter go to dinner while having a higher degree of confidence the people sitting around you aren't infected.  Supply is limited right now but you know that will get better in the months ahead.  Other companies are working on rapid testing as well.  Testing is the game changer and the way we'll finally get the upper hand on the virus.

On the Spike in Covid Cases.

Likely coming from two things.  First is all those college campuses reopening and also better testing.  I think we're detecting a lot more infections than perhaps more of a spike, except at universities.  Didn't anybody ever stop and ask if it was ever going to be a good idea to send out into the world this fall the age cohort that has shown us the complete inability to socially distance?  However, when talking about college aged kids I'd love to see data from them on infections and outcomes.  The circumstantial evidence suggests that for the most part they don't get very sick, if at all.  I'd love to see current data broken down by age.  

On the Election.  

I think the first two debates will pretty much crystalize the election.  Swing voters are likely leaning towards Mr. Biden but need to feel comfortable in their choice.  Joe's gotta close the deal with them I believe.   Assuming he does that then I'm beginning to think that the election might not even be that close.  If the election was held today I think Mr. Biden might get between 280-300 electoral votes.  I'll update these numbers after the first debate.  One unanticipated event is that the Republicans pulling out all the stops to rapidly fill the vacant Supreme Court justice seat could possibly incentivize both swing voters and the Democratic base to come out and vote.  

On Market Volatility.

I've said for some time that I expected the market's to become more volatile as we get closer to the election.  I'm not surprised at what we've been seeing.  Besides the upcoming vote, add in how far certain sectors had moved since this spring plus normal market seasonality and you get the perfect recipe for stocks to move into a digestive phase.   Major indices are down maybe close to 10% from their highs just a few weeks ago, but still up huge since the March lows.  This decline takes us basically back to the beginning of August.  A normal pullback so far and an event that's likely healthy as we're removing some of the speculative froth from the markets.

Go Read: "The Plan That Could Give Us Our Lives Back."

Back Monday.  

*Abbott Labs is a holding in certain ETFs we hold in client and personal accounts.