Seeking Alpha by Adding Beta

As history has taught us, empires rise and fall. We had seen this with Roman empire, British Empire, Ottoman empire and many more. Same can be said for companies. But even fallen empires or companies can rise if they can learn from their falls and innovate to prosper the new changing world. Apple had proven this when it came back from its almost bankrupt status in 1997. Let's look at some of companies which have been under decline for years for many reasons - some of which were their own mistakes (GE and Boeing), changing industry (Oil to green), disruptive new industries and behaviors (streaming, online advertisements) and some of them were just unlucky due to COVID which no one was prepared for. Now that companies and populations have learned to live with COVID and 2020 is 2 months away from ending, let's look at some of the companies (old empires) and see how they may perform in months ahead. Basic filter I used to define "empire" is that company must be at least 5

The 2nd surge of COVID infections is gaining momentum across many countries with US continuing to lead in number of cases and deaths. President Trump's COVID and outbreak at white house in last two weeks demonstrated that even highest and most secure facility in world could not prevent COVID penetration..the blame goes to administration for not taking precautions (the way they would take against terrorist threats). It feels that our own personal house is more safer than White house.  Markets had their best week since July when similar summer surge was happening and it continued to make highs till end of Aug. It a way markets are delinking from COVID story. We are at similar juncture and 4 factors would matter most for future direction. Economy: Q3 economy should show ~25% growth compared to Q2 (when it went down by 30+ % due to sudden lockdowns in March). That would be highest growth ever recorded for US economy. Over weekend, I visited St. Pedro's Square in San Jose Downtown f