Saying we would all love a “do over” from 2020 would be an extreme understatement. As the joke goes.... what was the worst 2019 Holiday gift? A 2020 schedule planner..... As we reach the (almost) halfway point to the year, I felt the itch to review this train wreck of time and to let loose on another rant...
The year started decently.... Andy Reid got his Superbowl. The Flyers were actually playing good hockey. My Buccaneers hired Tom Brady to (try) and fix the problems of the past. The equity markets were doing well. Yup, life was good.... Then..... Covid 19..... (insert frowny faces here)....
This unknown intruder came to the forefront (at least from a media perspective) quickly. In all reality it had been gaining traction for a couple of months.... but then it hit the headlines. We watched as sports leagues shut down, public gatherings were abandoned, and “out of an abundance of caution” we collectively closed up shop. To this day I still hate that phrase.....
To this point, I think, most would agree to the timeline. Then it became something more. Like most things these days, it took a different tone. A point of argument and a polarizing subject that took on political, age, and geographic bias. Living in Florida, we witnessed first-hand the fear (justified) and having a dad in a cognitive impaired assisted living facility, it was very real. We also witnessed a Governor who did it right and decisively protected the most vulnerable well before that was a talking point. No, I haven’t seen my father since March 1st, but I am grateful he is where he is. There are reasons Florida’s mortality rate (deaths per million) are low. Not sure if we were lucky or good, but there are reasons.
Now the rant..... please understand I am NOT understating the virus or the significance of what it does. Many have perished from it. My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones to this thing.... My rant is back to the media (real, fake, social, etc....). Covid 19 is a political football and the spin is awful. When Florida reopened to some level, nationwide there were pictures of massively overcrowded beaches with the hashtag “FloridaMorons”. I live on the beach and know where some of the pictures were “taken” and I can assure you they were not real. As anyone with an iPhone and an Instagram account can tell you... it’s all about angles. We were “media shamed” for our stupidity and told how many lives we were taking so we could go to the beach. Public shaming is NOT facts. Yelling thru the media is NOT data. As of today, the metrics are where they need to be in FL, the curve has been flattened to a manageable level, and public health and commerce are co-existing. As expected, I haven’t heard of any story retractions or “I was wrong” statements from the media who so vilified us in Florida for our stupidity.
Around the same time, another funny thing started to happen. One more near and dear to all our hearts..... the equity markets stopped going down and, in fact, began a dizzying recovery. While the talking heads were screaming Armageddon and virus death..... the equity markets started to recover. Perhaps the “collective consciousness” of the market knew something we didn’t. Or perhaps the markets are based on data and fact.....
As I have ranted about over and over the past 20 years, the markets are efficient. Human beings are not. That’s why market timing is folly and out guessing the markets usually ends badly. Tactical asset allocation and sound rebalancing tends to be a better plan (at least in my opinion). Listening to the media is not usually a good investment strategy. If it were, the shiny news people would be wealthy and not spending their time sensationalizing things to sell more media. Every crisis allows the media to scare you out. Every new fear is an opening for them to do a lot of damage to people’s portfolios. Without apology or sincerity, the media beat goes on, and this crisis was no different and, in the future, will be replaced by others.
One last data point as it relates to Covid 19. Again (here in Florida) we have been parallel testing for antibodies in addition to just Covid positive. The antibodies are present AFTER a person has had the virus and gives a pretty good idea of how much saturation there was of the virus in the population. After 3 weeks of testing, there were 123,552 people tested with 5474 positive results. Thus, the antibody positive rate is 4.4 percent. If you infer a general virus saturation rate at that level, it says over 945,000 people have had the virus. Further, the number of deaths in Florida from Covid 19 were 2461. A mortality rate of .26 of one percent. Not insignificant, especially to those with co-morbidity, but a far cry from the 4 to 6 percent being highlighted by the press.
Hopefully, summer will be better. We will all get sprung and into the world again. I’m sure we have all learned the lessons of taking things for granted..... Until now I never really understood the value to a good haircut, being able to sit in church, being able to hit the gym for a quick workout, or stop by the bar to catch up on local chatter. Maybe that’s the real positive from all this...... live in the now. Cherish and value the little things. Stop by and say hi to friends face to face whenever you can.
Best to all......
Ed