Written by Michael Forrester – Founder, President, and CIO of High Note Wealth
Happy Fri-Yay the 13th! It feels like full-blown winter in Minnesota, so it’s odd to hear the soothing sounds of the Masters in the background while writing, but we’ll take it. It’s a nice little distraction from the wall-to-wall election coverage of the past six weeks.
Speaking of the election, Team Trump dropped its Arizona lawsuit on Friday afternoon which pretty much puts us back to where we were a week ago. There is still going to be some noise with this until all votes are certified, but guess what? The market doesn’t really care as you may have noticed. This is good news for portfolios and a big relief, given that we have spent the last two months saying as much.
With election talk tapering down this week, focus turned to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine announcement and the increased case count. Last weekend, the much-rumored vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech became a reality with favorable results reporting from the phase three trial.
If you stumbled across financial news on Monday, you heard person after person tell you that the vaccine is here and it’s time to ditch all of the work-from-home investments and buy the stocks most damaged by the pandemic like it’s Black Friday. The tech market sold off and things like airlines, movie theaters, and hotels shot up. The case was made that you’d be crazy not to with the vaccine this close.
Well, that “trend” lasted one day and then the realty of the vaccine timeline set in, reversing Monday’s action. Certainly, an effective vaccine is a huge ray of light on a cloudy year, but it is going to take some time to get produced in large quantities, delivered and administered to those willing. It’s anything, but a quick fix.
The week closed with the U.S. stock market back to an all-time high and interest rates moving up ever-so-slightly. In the near-term, additional stay-at-home orders around the country will be a big driver as we are yet to fully digest the economic ramifications of the summer. Chicago is “advising” stay-at-home and NYC just hit the unmagical number of cases needed to close schools, signaling more lockdowns on the way. In short, very much business as usual in the decade known as the year 2020.
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Let’s Check-In with “Flyover Country”
Yikes. The Midwest has had a significant ramp in fatalities attributed to COVID. If we look back to 3-4 weeks ago, we saw case count in the region jumping up and now we are seeing the ramifications. This week we saw an upswing in the broader country which can, unfortunately, drive this chart higher overall.
Big City Flight
We’ve been discussing the trend of urban flight most of the year, but the data is always late to come. We do now have some data showing the current migration trends which will continue to change the landscape for elections, property taxes, and state governments.
Leaving:
Arriving:
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