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Post Pandemic Return to Normalization

Exactly two years back first COVID case was detected in US. Two years, Two Presidents from two parties with very different approaches to dealing with COVID and USA is still having highest daily cases, highest hospitalizations and unfortunately deaths due to COVID. Unfortunate state of affairs despite having three effective vaccines and majority of people vaccinated. After two years,  people are frustated and have moved on and treating COVID like endemic which is going to stay with us for many years to come. That's going to be normal world in 2022. All of us should continue to wear masks and take eligible vaccine boosters when available.

While world is adjusting to Covid as endemic, markets are trying to adjust to post-pandemic economic world. Let's look at few macro attributes and their effects on stock markets in 2022

  • Inflation running very hot and is at 40 year high reminding people of Volcker Fed days
  • Supply and labor shortages - I experienced it first hand
    • 30 min to pick coffee at Starbucks (25 people were in front of me) even after ordering on app
    • 45-60 min to pick prescriptions at Walgreens since they had to reduce hours due to shortage of pharmacists
    • 30 min in line at Sprouts checkout counter
    • Avg dinner ticket has gone up by 30-50%
    • Cleaners and gardeners are booked and requesting 40% increase in their rates (which I think deserve due to physical work they have to do)
  • Houses in Cupertino/Sunnyvale getting sold for $1M over asking price ($2.6 M listed house went for $3.8M with 26 bids - crazy)
No wonder Fed had to correct its course and acknowledge its mistake that inflation is no more "transitory" and act aggressively. And looking at their last meeting minutes and subsequent communications, they plan to do total 8 interest rate hikes (3 in 22, 3 in 23 and 2 in 24) for total of about 200 basis points. And of course markets - in particular bubble markets don't like it.  Markets were thinking that by bringing down indexes into correct territory would scare Fed to slow down. Let's see what Fed does in their FOMC meeting next week.

The myth of crypto as hedge against inflation is broken. Most of the cryptos are down by 50%. (In comparison stock indexes are down by 5-15%). Stocks of well know companies (CRM, SQ, PayPal, NFLX) are at 52 week lows. The darlings of Pandemic (PTON, ZM, Roku, MRNA, DOCU, TDOC and many others) are down by 75%. Pandemic fueled hangover in these stocks is over and now they have to show real growth based on inflated growth they had during Pandemic. And large numbers make expected 30-50% growth difficult. 

So what happens now and where should one invest (or better word would be "hide")? For that we would have to go back to post dot.com (bubble 2000-2001) or housing/financial bubble (2007-2009). The Pandemic bubble (2020-2021) is bursting and 2022 would be the year of normalization. There would be many survivors and some great companies (similar to AMZN, NFLX during dot.com bubble) would come out stronger. But it would be very difficult to pick winners. So I would stay with my advise of staying with indexes (SPY, XLE, KWEB, XLF, XLK, SMH, AMLP, IJR)

Markets are irrational in short term and rational in long term. So if you are investing for long term (5-10 years), 2022 would provide ample opportunities since indexes would be meaningfully higher in 2030 than now just based on economic expansion and strength.

/Shyam

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