The Economy Has Truly Been Hit Hard

The market and the economy have truly dislocated over the past month. This wide divergence shows how tone deaf the market is to what is happening in this country. It is the tale of two realities that are steadily diverging. The economy has truly been hit hard and Main Street has been suffering.  The unemployment levels are at a point that were nearing the Great Depression levels.  The GIG economy especially has been hit hard since those employees are transient and easy to drop from payroll.  While the country begins to strategically open back up, we are monitoring how quickly the economic numbers improve.  We expect that pickup to happen swiftly, with all the furloughed employees get back to work.  However, we also expect the numbers to plateau at some point.  We don’t expect unemployment to stay at 16%, but we also don’t expect it to return to 4%.  These two separate realities with the economy and Main Street struggling while the market rally continues unphased, we believe these two realities at some point must dovetail and have the market reflect the actual state of affairs.  When that happens we will be monitoring the market reaction and will manage accordingly.