The Saga Has Ended….Sort of

I don’t know about you, but I am glad that election is over…..sort of. The Trump administration plans to file lawsuits alleging voter fraud amongst other accusations so we will have to see how that plays out over the coming weeks.

That being said, it seems as if many have accepted the results and have begun planning for a new President on January 20th. I understand many of you will be ecstatic with the results, while some are upset and I tried to explain this dichotomy to my 6 year old daughter Priya and she said something profound. For a 6 year old at least.

Wisdom of a 6 year old

As I explained the reactions and things the kids might hear and see as a result of one side being upset and one side being happy, Priya asked me something that I want to share.

She asked “what if someone got hurt, would the other person help them”? She was asking if one person would help the other even though they were “fighting”. I answered with a resounding YES!

Does your neighbor’s lawn sign come into consideration if you see them fall? Would you let them lay there because of what their lawn sign says, or would you spring up and run across the street? I know my answer.

Enough with the election, what’s next!

We are going to see markets rise today as indicated by morning futures. A chunk of that gain was there in the early morning with markets reacting to a Joe Biden win, but the gains picked up steam with an announcement from Pfizer and BioNTech that their Covid-19 vaccine is displaying a 90% efficacy rate. This is still early results, and the safety data will be released in a couple of weeks.

90% is amazing, and if it holds up will be huge. In comparison, the flu vaccine is only about 60% efficacy. I have included the link to the statnews article below. I do not want to pull bits and pieces to quote, as the entire article is awash with data that is important.

Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech is strongly effective, early data from large trial indicate

Market rally, continue or lose steam?

Frankly, if I had a definitive answer to this question, we would all be pretty filthy rich! Since the end of March we have seen a market rally that has only revolved around a handful of the largest stocks in the indexes, which has caused a false sense of an overall market recovery.

With todays news about a vaccine, we are starting to see a rotation into a broader group of companies that are now recovering. This is a great thing for the market, but doesn’t mean our house of cards can’t fall. Remember, a lot of this is based on a vaccine, which we have good news about, but nothing is final yet.

Volatility will continue. The euphoria we feel seeing markets up more than 4% this morning can quickly be replaced by the utter desperation of seeing markets hit their limit down like we did day after day in March. Either way don’t let that feeling drive your decision making process.

So What?

So how does this impact all of you?

  • Lawn signs don’t matter
  • Covid-19 vaccine is great, but beware global demand rising faster than global supply, causing inflation
  • Sometimes a 6 year old can help put things in perspective

Stock market calendar this week:

Thursday November 12th, 2020

Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims @ 8:30AM

Most anticipated earnings for this week

anticipated earnings nov 12 graph

Latest COVID-19 Data

Latest COVID-19 data nov 9th