I asked a small business owner how things were going in lockdown. He’s furloughed his 3 employees, and is now running his workshop alone. “This is what I want to do in the future”, he said. “I don’t want the hassle of employing anyone, I won’t be taking any of them back when this is all over”. He could well change his mind when and if the work starts coming in again. But I wonder how many employees in the wider economy won’t be reemployed, by choice or necessity ‘when this is all over’. That could be the real legacy of the virus.
“Do not expect America’s interest rates to fall just yet”
As rehearsed many times on these pages, the next move onwards and upwards for your investments depends largely on the decisions of various bankers and economists in what would once have been ‘smoke-filled rooms’.