Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of May 5, 2020

Article Excerpt

I was in a meeting with a group of investors last week, and we of course spent a lot of time talking about the pandemic. Some members were wary about the upcoming plan in the U.S. to began lifting the pandemic lockdown. Others were not so much wary as resigned to the idea that easing the lockdown, much less lifting it, could bring a new bulge in deaths and another stock market plunge. Many people felt unsure about the immediate future. There was discussion about ways of earning investment income beyond the meagre interest rates available from bonds. As the lifting of the lockdown creeps forward, the market is likely to be highly sensitive to statistics on new Covid-19 cases and deaths. But, with or without a lockdown, the incidence of the virus has varied wildly from place to place. Nobody knows why. In fact, if you Google “The Covid-19 Riddle,” you’ll come to a recent New York Times story entitled “Why…