Recovery from coronavirus – a buying opportunity?

By: Hamesh Sharma

Firstly, we hope everyone is staying safe during this difficult and stressful period. It seems insensitive to talk about investing, but we must do our job and do it well through this crisis.

We are in a fast-moving and fluid situation with regards to the impact of coronavirus on financial markets, highlighted by the fact that we have experienced the fastest bear market in record. 

On the one hand, there are signs real-money investors like pension funds are ready to step in and buy now that panic liquidations look to have slowed. There are also signs of improvement in some of the world’s regions that were hardest-hit by the virus (China, South Korea) which shows a road map to others. On the other, the number of infections globally continues to accelerate with large-scale containment measures being put in place to “flatten the infection curve”.

In the last few days, we have seen markets recover some lost ground, so the question on everyone’s mind is, what shape could a potential recovery take?