The Main Thing You Cannot Control is Time

At this point into the lockdown/quarantine in most parts of the country it may feel like we are constantly being teased into thinking we will re-open the economy any day now. Indeed, the market seems to think so, with stocks furiously squeezing over the last five weeks in order to try to price in such a scenario. 

Seeing as history does not repeat very often but it does rhyme, my best guess is that even though we do will likely see widespread riots or major food supply shortages we will, in fact, see an exhausted population which is emotionally drained.

As the Great Depression dragged on, for example, many American and European thinkers/pundits/intellectuals were quite surprised that the rugged, individualist United States featured virtually none of the brutal violence against the upper class that was seen in England, for example. No, instead, the American population stood in their bread lines and humbly worked through the dark period in time. Are we the same country now? Not exactly, on some levels. But yes on other levels. 

And so the market may be pricing in that resilience of the American people, although I suspect it will take a fair amount of time to get back to the go-go days of crowded restaurants, bars, casinos, cruises, airpots, etc.. As an example, there were reports of Las Vegas Strip casinos expecting only 10-20% occupancy rates on the Strip from June-August if, indeed, they re-open by then--That is not exactly the stuff out of which profitable businesses are made. 

At any rate, we are where we are, and we will keep plowing through each day, like it or not, regardless of what the virus does. The one thing we all cannot control in life is time--All the tech in the world has not changed that yet, and I would not beholding my breath on a time-travel breakthrough. So we might as well make the best of however much longer this lasts. 

With the heavyweights in the QQQ ETF like FB MSFT TSLA trying to keep bears at bay this morning with the other indices flashing red. One bright spot in biotech is ALLO, a small cap biotech specializing in T-Cell cancer therapies. Note the strength on the daily chart, below.