There’s no telling what type of world we will be in post coronavirus. Some people are taking the time to invest in a future by way of the stock market. Even as the economy suffers (last month close to half the country was without a job) there is a rise in interest for the stock market, especially for first time investors.
Peter Ricchiuti is a Tulane Business Professor and well-versed in investing. He has monitored the stock market and says, “if you think about where the pandemic started, around March, you had a precipitous drop of about 30 percent over the course of just several days… one of the fastest and biggest drops we’ve ever seen but it came back right away. So investors are really trying to think ahead of the people who are going to be hurt who will be beneficiaries of the pandemic.”
There is plenty to influence the market and that is what keeps investors and “speculators” busy. This year is a year of change. There is a renewed interest in racial relations and it is paving the way for the country’s first black-owned stock exchange, the Dream Exchange, which opens next year. There is an election, in 2020’s final act and many are seeing the CBD product trend, and predicting that a new president might entertain marijuana legalization. Also, as this year’s pandemic rages on, Koak is now seeing a rally after the president announced the camera company would have a hand in medical technology innovation.
Ricchiuiti says, “there are certainly companies that have benefited. Amazon trucks run around here all day long. People are trapped at home watching things they would have never watched on Netflix. Then on the other side, you have speculators who are buying stocks from the cruise ships and hotels, hoping there will be some sort of recovery in there.”
With anyone new to investing, the thrill can be as luminous as a slot machine’s lights, but the most important question to ask before putting money in, is asking the essential question of can you afford to loose it? Still if you’re ready to take the plunge into learning about the stock market, try doing it together. Ann Duplessis is the Senior Vice President of Liberty Bank and says, “I think a fun way is for a group of people to get together to create an investment club. It gives the opportunity for people to pool their money together and learn about the stocks and industries and have a zoom meeting with a glass of wine on a Sunday afternoon and talk about the stock you want to invest in.”
Betterinvesting.org can be a neat tool because it has free forms that can help to organize investment clubs.
Most shareholders will tell you not to daily monitor stocks. The idea is to be in it for the long haul and hope to see shares mature over years and not days; while continuously growing the number of shares in a particular company. Yes, the economy could recover, along with industries in debt. However, buying stock in companies with flies buzzing around it as it sinks in debt, could leave shareholders with empty pockets if the invested companies go bankrupt. But that’s the rub! It’s all about smart investing.