The 2 graphs below are from a recent webinar I watched and they clearly show how our national economy has bounced back from this turmoil when compared to the Great Recession. For instance: 1) the drop of the S&P 500 from when the crisis started to its bottom was 56% for the GR vs 34% for COVID; 2) it was off by 20+% (considered a bear market) for 400 days with the GR vs. only 17 for COVID; and 3) as of 5/18/20, the S&P 500 was only off 13% when COVID started. This shows the difference between a “financial” crisis and a “health” crisis on our stock markets. As stated here before, it is like a baseball game with a storm delay...there is a time the game has to stop, but it quickly gets started again after the storm which is what we are seeing with the COVID pandemic.
You can see from the graph below just how dramatic the effect of COVID was for the 6 weeks I’d mentioned here in my last newsletter….after a strong start to 2020 thru March where we exceeded 2019 numbers, sales dropped dramatically in April. It will be interesting to see how May’s numbers look when they come out around the 17th (when my next newsletter comes out).
