We all know Black Monday… 1987 crash. That was in the textbooks of everyone who wanted to be in the investment industry. I don’t know what exams you had to do but for investment advisors, it’s seared in our memories for two reasons:
- Worst one day market decline in US history
- People tell stories about how they bought that day and got rich because of it.
Well guess what… yesterday was worse than that for us. https://business.financialpost.com/investing/the-toronto-stock-exchange-just-had-its-worst-day-since-1940-yes-thats-80-years
I looked at my cell phone this morning and saw the headlines and realized that we will likely be reading about yesterday in textbooks in 10, 20, 50 year’s time… Thursday March 12th will likely have a name… A dark name like Black Monday…. perhaps “Corona Thursday” or something. In the future, I can see Bay Street types going out on the anniversary of Thursday March 12th to their favorite bars where they buy buckets of Corona on special to celebrate that day in investment history. That day where high quality companies with irreplaceable assets were on sale for those bold enough to take advantage.
Every day, we see headlines about governments are throwing whatever they can into their respective economies to stop this carnage.
- Europe just banned short selling. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/european-business/article-italy-and-spain-limit-short-selling-to-stem-coronavirus-market-crash/
- Interest rates have dropped across the board, with speculation that the Fed in the US will cut to zero: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/fed-increasingly-expected-to-cut-interest-rates-to-zero-next-week.html
- Money printing via quantitative easing is happening on a massive scale https://www.axios.com/quantitative-easing-bond-yields-federal-reserve-4e546505-fbea-4ce0-8a69-6dec9c8ea6cc.html
- Democrats and Republicans are working together on a coronavirus aid package. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/12/democrats-to-pass-coronavirus-economic-relief-package-126961
I can’t tell you what WILL happen. But I can tell you that it looks to me like governments around the world are all in on priming the economy to deal with the impact of lower economic activity in the near term. This bodes very well for future asset prices even though it’s anybody’s guess where asset prices go in the coming days and weeks..
Please call or email if you would like to speak. And if you have money on the sidelines that you would like to put to work for the long term, that time is at hand.
