Good morning, it's Paul here with the SCVR for Tuesday.
Futures are up nicely, so we should have a positive day today. There probably won't be much company news today, if so I'll possibly have another hour in bed, it depends what impact the first coffee of the day has shortly.
Timing - I've exhausted the minimal amount of newsflow today, so today's report is now finished. I'm pleased that we have over 4,000 reads of this article at 12:26 - which encourages me that it's worthwhile writing stuff at this quiet time of year. I'll always find something to write about, even if it's something general, or a company that I'd meant to look at some time ago.
Covid-19 deaths
I feel that the reporting by journalists of covid-19 has seemed wildly inaccurate right from the start - giving the impression that we're all at terrible, and equal risk of death. Whereas the published data has clearly shown that is not at all true. This illness overwhelmingly attacks the elderly & sick. Finally, the Telegraph has broken cover, pointing out today;
Almost three times as many under 60s died in road crashes last year as those without health conditions killed by coronavirus, NHS data shows.
Just 388 people under the age of 60 with no underlying health conditions have died of coronavirus in England, NHS data has revealed....
In comparison, during the whole of 2019, 955 under-60s died on England’s roads.
When put like that, it does make the economic (and human) damage caused by lockdowns seem highly disproportionate. On the upside, it should mean that once vaccines are properly rolled out, that everyone not old/vulnerable should be able to get back to normal quite quickly. Press reports are saying that the Oxford/Astra vaccine is about to be approved imminently, and can be rolled out very fast, due to simple storage requirements. If that's correct, then the picture for stock market investors is looking a lot more positive. We just have to get through a few more weeks of awful news about it spreading rapidly (new strain, cold weather), before the tide turns.
Outlook for 2021
Based on information currently available, I think it makes sense for investors to be looking beyond covid, and pricing in recovery. That's happened for a lot of shares already, but there are still plenty of opportunities out there I think.…
