Each day the coronavirus pandemic sets another domino to fall. The latest could be bank dividends. It’s now very likely that our banks will cut – or even postpone – their dividends this year. If they do, it will be a major blow to many retail investors and retirees.

The stock market sell off validated an internal decision to abstain from the bubble in the months leading up to January 2020, but it wasn’t the only forecast that came to pass.

As we look ahead the key questions for markets is how long will global economies remain closed for business, and what will demand look like on the other side of the valley?

If the recent market rally has taken you by surprise, you’re not alone.   Since hitting a low around 23 March, the S&P/ASX200 Index has rebounded almost 20 per cent, despite a steady flow of grim health and economic news coming out of Europe and the US.  So does that mean the market has bottomed?

That’s the question on many investors’ minds these days. And it’s certainly one that our team is starting to ponder as the prices of many high quality businesses become more reasonable. However, before we start investing significant amounts of our clients’ capital, there are four things we want to see.

Investors holding on to a V-shaped recovery may have been heartened by the recent stock market rebound, but the shortest bear-to-bull market in history looks increasingly like a false start with more pain to come. It is becoming increasingly evident that economic data, not virus data, will be the key determinant of the shape of the recovery.

To describe recent market volatility as high is to understate the facts.   Since the peak on February 19, the US market has registered the most rapid sell-off ever, its biggest three-day gain since the 1930s, the biggest one-day percentage gain since 1933 and the second ever largest one-day fall.

For those interested in the up-to-date developments in our global portfolios, we wanted to share the following. As of Monday, March 30, we observed the following: COVID-19 data (daily growth rates in deaths and cases) shows clear improvement in Europe and Australia.

With so many companies now trading at cut-price valuations, many of our readers are asking whether it’s time to start buying again.  Over the past six weeks many companies are down.   And some of them are very high quality indeed.  A new reality exists, and one with the same opportunities as 1987.