The situation is excellent. The market is rallying led by a government sanctioned rally in China. Our constructive thesis is validated after a period of noise in the equity market led by a US spike in Covid-19 cases. This is excellent and precisely why we need to worry.
The lockdowns implemented in the wake of the pandemic have had profound
implications on the way people live. One of them in the payment sector has been a surge
in e-commerce activity. More importantly perhaps, Covid-19 is blurring the lines
between e-commerce and traditional retail as social distancing forces merchants to
rethink their go-to-market and build an interchangeable presence between the online
and offline channels.
The Special Situations strategy went through a roller coaster since February. Typically, due to their long structural market beta, managers tend to underperform in risk-off episodes. However, as they also tend to look beyond short-term volatility, they usually rebound faster.
An economy in lockdown has significant effects for investors in real assets. In this data illustration, our real assets research team consider the benefit of businesses returning to their usual locations against the risks of doing so.
The Covid-19 crisis has challenged individuals, families, companies, governments and investment markets around the world. It is an experience that could fundamentally reshape consumer and corporate behaviour as well as financial markets. With that in mind, here are the 10 resulting trends to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis that I believe will change economies and markets forever.