Back to the OP (for the love of all that is holy… this Brian-vs-various-people pissing contest is profoundly tedious and I’m embarrassed that it’s on my website).
Anyway back to the OP: when you buy stocks, you are buying a VERY long-term stream of earnings. Like, decades. This recession looks to be very severe, but it is short term by its very nature (at some point we contain the virus, or everyone has gotten it… this can’t go on for all that long).
So as bad as this recession may be, it’s hard to see it moving the dial all that much on the DECADES worth of earnings that determine what stocks are actually worth.
I should note here that I think the US stock market started out very overvalued, which complicates things. But assuming stocks were starting out reasonably valued (as many international stock markets were, imo) — then I think a 30%+ decline is a huge overreaction.
Whether the stock downturn gets worse before it gets better, I have no idea. But I think there’s a good chance that several years hence, people will look back at this as having been a good time to be investing in what everyone else was panicking out of. (Again, assuming it hadn’t started out very overvalued to being with).
