Written by Michael Forrester – Founder, President, and CIO of High Note Wealth
Happy Memorial Day Weekend, High Noters! It will be different than years past for sure, but we still hope everyone has fun plans to rest, relax, spend time with family, BBQ, exercise, knit or whatever suits your fancy. The holiday provides a nice perspective on the current pandemic that has dominated our lives as we take a moment to honor those fallen in the service of the country. The COVID crisis has now been attributed to over 94k deaths in the US; a number similar to the soldiers lost in Vietnam. While making a comparison in numbers alone, all losses are tragic and create a ripple effect of sadness among family members, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances that lingers for a long time. So while it’s easy for us to complain about stocks dropping in price or having to wear a mask when we leave the house, these things are trivial when we think about the sacrifices our front-line health care workers are making now and the countless number of military families who have buried loved ones. For anyone dealing with loss this weekend, please know that you are in our thoughts.
The plan for this note is to keep it really brief for a couple of reasons. First, we are planning on spending plenty of time this weekend digging into research that we will share Tuesday morning. Second, three full days of coronavirus news before markets re-open on Tuesday is sure to change some of the tone that we heard in the markets this week.
The short story is that the US stock market had a positive week and the bond market was relatively quiet. Early in the week we got some positive virus news which was rebutted then unrebutted(?) and challenged but not confirmed, so your guess is as good as ours – more to come on this. The main story that has our attention is the deteriorating rhetoric between D.C. and Beijing. The glass-half-full take is that we have seen this throughout the current administration’s time in office without a lot of action while the glass-half-empty crowd would point to this being the inflection point for a full-on trade/cold war. As with most things, the truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle. This is something that we will continue to track closely as it does have ramifications for all aspects of the global economy.
We wish you all the best. Let us know if we can help. More to come soon…
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