Get Used to Hearing: "Better than Expected…"

The kick-off to the summer is underway, and the high-speed frequency data suggests many cylinders of the economy are coming back to life; several of which are doing so in a very positive way.

Let's sit back and consider a few of the things which have taken place in roughly the past 100 days:

• The human toll has been significant - with nearly 100,000 reported COVID deaths in the US and an exhausted medical profession on the front line that’s in need of further support.
• The market waterfall panic, and a complete liquidation and run-for-the-exits, as the fear of the virus drives us from record highs and a top-flight economy into a bear market and global shutdown.
• For the first time in history, 350 million people were directed to create a recession. No choice. just do it. (Warning - my next statement is not intended to be political or anything else.) Any voicing of any other opinion was met with "So you don't care if people die..." We were told that we could get the disease from touching things, rubbing elevator buttons, grabbing the mail, taking a box of pasta off the shelf at the grocery store.

Fast-forward 100 or so days:

• Thanks to the tech and medical science we have helping us all, we see over 100 different potions are racing toward a vaccine finish line. Dozens more are racing toward various therapeutics - all hunting down this virus.
• Crude oil crashed from $32 to a negative $38 a barrel as last month ended, igniting screams of complete and total global collapse and mass bankruptcies. This was followed by what is now becoming "the best month on record for crude oil" - with prices back to, you guessed it - the low $30's per barrel.
• We see re-openings in some states with some mild increases in cases primarily driven by more testing. Still, after all the horrible news on the health-front, less than 2% of all cases are serious - with a vast number of those succumbing to the disease being over 70 and carrying other risks into the illness.
• We found out in the last week that the CDC no longer feels one can likely get the illness from surfaces. Call me nutty, but they are trillions of dollars late on that finding and yet we worry about a company missing a quarterly report by 3 cents?! LOL.
• Oh, and how could I forget: A new bull market has been birthed in the middle of our darkest collective hours. That’s for those with patience and discipline and, the strength to hear all this bad news and stay focused on the long-run success of the US.
• And finally, for this small highlight list, while the media has focused only on COVID for its attention-grabbing coverage 99% of the time, SpaceX is about to send astronauts into space in the beginning of a series of live flights as they prepare a pathway back to the moon and then on to Mars.

Despite all that the mainstream news roll is almost all bad.

For some odd reason, especially during times of stress, if one expresses the negatives, the downfalls, the risks, the dangers and the intricate reasons for all of them it somehow feels and sounds more intelligent and well thought out.

It just feels smarter to be negative.

On the other hand, if you listen to the same data on the ground that is eliciting a less scary and more patient review of our past ability to overcome, it’s deemed to be folly, not caring, too risky and, of course, they just don't understand how bad it is out there. 

Remember this: The very best way to control a person and their focus is to make them afraid.

New Scary Monsters…

So, how do we know that we are just about over the public’s attention span of the current disaster?

Ratings!

That’s when the media starts prepping us for the next monster.

And the winner is: Trade tensions!

Ha!

The bull market is young again, and better still for long-term investors, everyone still hates the market:

Get ready for a series of months where we will be set to hear these great words often:

"Better than expected...."

The two flashes above were just released this week, which once again confirms the fear trade is rampant.

But beneath the terror there’s almost $18 trillion in bank deposits (US) that now suggests we have a gargantuan "rainy decade fund" set aside.   

Sure, the new economy ahead will run into problems - and fix them - at far greater velocity than anything seen before.

And the solutions will come far faster - even as the "problems" seem larger, and our psyche will be tested alongside our ability to remain patient.