The Thing About The Coronavirus, Market Meltdowns, And Recessions…

Stock markets around the world have fallen in recent times. For instance, the S&P 500 in the US was down by 6.6% from last Friday (21 February 2020) to Wednesday (26 February 2020). At our home in Singapore, the Straits Times Index has declined by 5.1% from 17 January 2020 to 26 February 2020. 

I hate to attach reasons to short-term market moves. But this time, it’s pretty clear that fears related to COVID-19, the most recently discovered coronavirus that has infected humans on a large scale, are the culprits.

What scares us

These fears exist for good reasons – there could be a global economic downturn in the works. Already, businesses of many large companies around the world have been affected by COVID-19. In the US, these include Apple, Microsoft, and Booking Holdings (which is in my family’s investment portfolio) just to name a few. In Singapore, property giant CapitaLand, airline caterer SATS, and even Temasek Holdings (one of the Singapore government’s investment arms), have enacted pay cuts because of difficult business conditions.

Plenty of human suffering have happened because of COVID-19, and sadly no one knows how widespread the disease outbreak will be. And from an investing angle, I don’t think anyone knows the eventual effects that COVID-19 will have on the global economy and financial markets (you should run from anyone who claims he/she does!).

Lessons from the past

History is not, and will never be, a perfect guide for the future. But in an uncertain time like this, studying the past can give us context and soothe our nerves.

I’m looking mostly at the US stock market and economy, since there is good long-term data for me to work with.

The chart below shows all the recessions (the dark grey bars) in the US since 1871. You can see that recessions in the country – from whatever causes – have been regular occurrences even in relatively modern times. They are par for the course, even for a mighty economy like the US.

The following logarithmic chart shows the performance of the S&P 500 (including dividends) from January 1871 to February 2020. It turns out that US stocks have done exceedingly well over the past 149 years (up 46,459,412% in total including dividends, or 9.2% per year) despite the US economy having encountered numerous recessions. If you’re investing for the long run, recessions can hurt over the short-term, but they’re nothing to fear.

Having an idea of how often stocks have fallen – for whatever reasons – is also useful to put the current mini-meltdown in stocks into perspective. Between 1928 and 2013, the S&P 500 has, on average, fallen by 10% once every 11 months; 20% every two years; 30% every decade; and 50% two to three times per century. Over the same period, US stocks have climbed by 283,282% (including dividends), or 9.8% per year. Stocks frequently decline hard even while they’re in the process of earning good long-term returns for investors. So when stocks fall, it’s not a sign that something is broken – it’s just a natural part of the game.

It’s worth noting too that global stocks have registered solid long-term gains despite multiple occurrences of deadly disease outbreaks in the past. This is shown in the following chart:

Some of you might be thinking: Now that there’s a heightened risk of a global recession, should we try to time the stock market? I don’t think so. Why? Look at the chart below. The red line shows the return we could have earned from 1980 to today in the US stock market if we had sold stocks at the official start of a recession in the country and bought stocks at the official end. The black line illustrates our return if we had simply bought and held US stocks from 1980 to today. It turns out that completely side-stepping recessions harms our return significantly, so it could be better to stay invested for the long run.

This does not mean we should stay invested blindly. Companies that currently are heavily in debt, and/or have shaky cash flows and weak revenue streams are likely to run into severe problems if there’s an economic downturn. If a global recession really happens, and our portfolios are full of such companies, we may never recover. It’s always a good time to re-evaluate the companies in our portfolios, but I think there’s even more urgency to do so now.

A sage’s wise words

I want to leave the final words in this article to Warren Buffett. In an interview with CNBC earlier this week, the Oracle of Omaha shared his thoughts on how investors ought to be dealing with COVID-19. He said (emphasis is mine):

“Look, the tariff situation was a big question market for all kinds of companies. And still is to some degree. But that was front and center for a while. Now coronavirus is front and center. Something else will be front and center six months from now and a year from now and two years from now. Real question is — where are these businesses gonna be five and ten and 20 years from now? Some of them will do sensationally, some of them will disappear. And overall I think America will do very well — you know, it has since 1776…

…We’ve got a big investment in airline businesses and I just heard even more flights are canceled and all that. But flights are canceled for weather. It so happens in this case they’re gonna be canceled for longer because of coronavirus. But if you own airlines for 10 or 20 years you’re gonna have some ups and down in current. And some of them will be weather related and they can be all kinds of things. The real question is you know, how many passengers are they gonna be carrying 10 years from now and 15 years from now and what will margins be and– what will the competitive position be? But I still look at the figures all the time — I’ll admit that…

…[Coronavirus] makes no difference in our investments. There’s always gonna be some news, good or bad, every day. In fact, if you go back and read all the papers for the last 50 years, probably most of the headlines tend to be bad. But if you look at what happens to the economy, most of the things that happen are extremely good. I mean, it’s incredible what will happen over time. So if somebody came and told me that the global growth rate was gonna be down 1% instead of 1/10th of a percent, I’d still buy stocks if I liked the price at which — and I like the prices better today than I liked them last Friday…

… We’re buying businesses to own for 20 or 30 years. We buy them in whole, we buy them in part. They’re called stocks when we buy in part. And we think the 20- and 30-year outlook is not changed by coronavirus.”

Disclaimer: The Good Investors is the personal investing blog of two simple guys who are passionate about educating Singaporeans about stock market investing. By using this Site, you specifically agree that none of the information provided constitutes financial, investment, or other professional advice. It is only intended to provide education. Speak with a professional before making important decisions about your money, your professional life, or even your personal life.