Headlines impact us on a daily basis. Good, bad or ugly - they impact the market, they impact companies and they can even impact our psyche. As I write this post the Dow is down about 1,000 points today, which is about 3.40%. Headline says, 'Dow falls on global pandemic worries'. In recent weeks I have also had people ask me questions about Presidential election years and how the market is impacted by those headline. In this blog, I wanted to address both questions in the best way I know how, by educating myself and others. There are a lot of links with information in this blog so please bear with me. I wanted to give you some of the same information I read to become a bit better informed.
Coronavirus. Johns Hopkins University has a great resource on their website with updates on wordwide cases. Click here to see the website. They also have a webpage dedicated to updates and links to new articles to better inform us what is going on. Click here for a coronavirus update reports. To date there are estimated to be nearly 80,000 cases and 2,500 deaths worldwide with over 25,000 who have recovered.
To put this in perspective, the CDC estimates that there will be 29 to 41 million flu illnesses in the US this flu season with 16 to 41 thousand resulting in death. See CDC information here.
I am not a health care professional - I don't want to discount any disease, nor do I want to alarm anyone, this is simply education. The World Health Organization advises we cover our cough, wash hands regularly with warm water and soap, keep a distance from anyone with a cough and avoid touching your eyes, nose and throat. Here is a link to their site: Click Here. Lastly, I am going to continue to pray that flu season and the coronavirus run their course effecting as few people as possible.
Presidential Race
The Democratic race is heating up and it's hard to know how everything will shape up right now. Regardless of your political affiliation we all feel the daily political headlines. I wrote a blog about a month before the last Presidential election in 2016 (Life and Elections, October 6, 2016) that said some of the same things I will mention again.
The market does not like uncertainty. Even as the primaries come to an end there will be more certainty in who will be the candidates. Which typically helps with the volatility of the markets. American Funds has a great informational piece which talks about market volatility during primaries and after (Click here to see American Funds 2020 Outlook). The outlook shows, in general, the market responds in a positive way, regardless of who the candidates are.
Uncertainty is the same reason for the coronavirus impacting markets more than the flu season does. We know what to expect from the flu...we don't quite have our arms around the coronavirus. Hopefully our health care professionals will soon and the markets will reflect that.
If any of these things are bothering you or if you'd like to sit down to review your portfolio allocation and re-visit your risk tolerance and time horizon to reach your goals please call or email us. We are here to help you navigate finances and make educated decisions about your money.
I'll end this the same way I ended the October 2016 blog. Don't let these things pull you down. We can control our attitude and our effort. Have a good attitude, work hard at the things that are important to you and do the right thing for other people. Call me old fashioned but I think that might just work.