So here we are at a key inflection point in this crisis, barely a month old (from a global sense) which will undoubtedly define a generation in a similar vein to the last world war.
An organism on the edge of ‘life’ is dictating a species on the pinnacle of evolution - it is truly strange times we will in.
By starting this thread, I wanted to focus on the macro economic COVID-19 themes which often get diluted and fragmented in the daily XJO threads. From a investing perspective, the next 6-12months may be the opportunity of a lifetime (or ultimate wealth destructer). Outcome will be more or less binary.
Ultimately we are all united on these forums by the fact we are trying to gain insights to aid us navigate these markets - especially this extremely volatile great bear market.
If everyone posting on this thread gives a small intro about themselves and their investing history would be great.
Heres me: I am in my early 40s married with a few kids. I am scientist by training (microbiology major - virology was actually my fav subject in 3 years of uni!) - however my career has been in infrastructure project management. I started investing in sept 2007 - lost a bunch in the GFC investing a debt traps like BNB CNP but managed to ride the wave up thru beaten down hybrids and listed bonds like MXUPA, TIMHB, GMMPA. Dabbled in some real estate which probably was the best winner overall but still like stocks for purely challenge of active investing. Took a another fairly big hit on SGH however managed to escape with some powder dry. These days I mainly deal with XJO options as I like leverage and the macro nature.
Since the COVID crisis broke, I spend about 3-4 hours a night looking up latest scientific journals / economic reports to make sense of all this - the media / govt pollutes us with so much marginally factual information it’s a real effort to filter out the noise.
Anyway here’s my current thoughts
- China will experience a significant resurgence of infections (although it may be covered up again by their govt). This will cause another massive medical supply chain squeeze resulting in lack of reagents to conduct COVID-19 testing, shortage of essential generic medicines and ongoing shortages of medical PPE. This poses significant downside health risks for western countries with aging populations even if COVID-19 is magically controlled.
- In the GFC, we had systemic failure of the credit markets triggered when the fed let bear sterns and lehman fail. With the USA likely to the hardest hit country based on a 3 month extrapolation of the virus - I feel the real unpriced risk is that the world may lose confidence in the world’s reserve currency - the mighty US dollar and their govt bonds. This would be the ultimate economic calamity and I cannot begin to think of the global impacts this may have. Money (or debt) value is determined by the financial strength of the backer - losing faith in the world’s economic backstop in my opinion is the end game of this COVID-19 crisis.
(20min delay)