Before I start, I like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ahead. May 2021 hold more joy and brightness than this year, which we all want to forget.
Businesses are all trying to wind down now in the face of a crazy and difficult year, where everything but the kitchen sink was thrown at you. A 1 in a 100 years event where there is no reaction template to consult with. A go as you learn situation that affects just about every single human being on earth.
Who would have thought that if someone had told me a year ago that the whole world would stop functioning for months because of an invisible enemy, I would have said that he was insane? The tables have been turned upside down as we fall into a new normal that evolves day by day.
Masks and toilet paper became valuable commodities overnight. The fear of death was very real for everyone in the world. SARS taught Asia to be better prepared but yet the scale of the pandemic astounded all of us. One could not have imagined that we needed to press the pause button on the whole world to fight COVID19. Lockdowns became common buzz words and getting used to being trapped at home for months was the norm.
It was a long spring, summer and autumn, fraught with uncertainties every week. I started ending my blog titles in terms of week counts to refer to the virus impact event, starting from where I had perceived to be the start. Today, we are in week 42. It is my personal diary of COVID19 which I wanted to have a record of events to look back to in the future, to reflect upon the difficult year where time stood still. It is also memorable that I experienced what prison was\ like as I was trapped in a hotel room for 14 nights, as part of a strict quarantine rule for returning to S’pore from the UK in mid-Oct.
There are many firsts in terms of experience for all. Not being able to see love ones for months, being stranded at home within the country and common activities like travelling overseas stopped completely.
Multiple businesses that thrived in 2019 died via a thousand paper cuts as oxygen was sucked away from under their feet. All central banks mounted huge relief packages aka money printing as if there is no tomorrow, to try to prevent their economies from collapsing. And yet the stock markets roared ahead to new highs after the disastrous meltdown in March that lasted all of one month. There was too much liquidity chasing too few assets. Those investors that are brave enough to catch trends like working from home technology made good money.
QR codes and cashless payment adoption accelerated. Contact tracing via apps (damn the privacy) became compulsory. The world had to be nimble and adapt fast to each challenge. Those countries that were slow or refuse to acknowledge them were punished hard by the virus. The weakness of each country’s infrastructure was exposed to all to see. Even the proactive ones were savaged by 2nd and 3rd waves as the year wore on. No one was spared.
Where do we go from here now? Winter is approaching and the western world seems ill-prepared to handle the new surge in cases to historical highs. It is like March all over again. With more people staying indoors and celebrating the year-end holidays, Jan 2021 does seem to look bleak. Telling everyone not to gather in big groups for the holidays look like an impossible task as more Americans are determined to travel home for the Christmas dinner after such a shitty year.
Draconian rules have been applied in Asia and the rest of the world is starting to slowly realize that it works to combat the virus. The UK had to open and shut so many times that I have lost count. I was there for a month and personally witnessed the yo-yo decision making which made things worse. Brexit discussions going nowhere also did not help.
The silver lining in all these depressing news is the vaccine progress. Now that Moderna is approved by FDA, we have 2 main contenders (Pfizer being the first) being slowly rolled out all over the world. It still takes time and S’pore only gets them by end Dec. With 2 injections required about 3 to 4 weeks apart, it is a logistical nightmare to aim to achieve herd immunity via vaccines. We will need 60 to 80% of the population to have the shots. There will be more vaccines coming onstream soon but with varying degrees of effectiveness.
This is now another level of uncertainty which the world has not prepared for it before. The gapping problem will mean that things will get worse before it gets better. Can we afford to have another 3 to 6 months of seeing new peaks in cases? Or can we accelerate the vaccine rollout and make it compulsory for all?
A lot of people are adopting a wait and see attitude for the vaccine. You can afford to if you are safe in a country like S’pore. But if you are in a high-risk environment, then it is a choice between life and death. A no-brainer decision. Of course, everyone agrees that the front line workers should all get it asap. I would if I am exposed to the virus every day on my job. In order to save lives, one should protect oneself first. If the front line troops are decimated like in some countries earlier this year, then the whole community suffers eventually.
I can only foresee that more urgent relief liquidity is going to be provided by the central banks. This will create the same situation as in Apr where too much liquidity is chasing assets. Market prices will rise as the value of money decreases. Look at Bitcoin rising to new highs of 23.5k. There is a loss of confidence of fiat currencies, a bottomless pit where you get zero to negative rates for your idle funds in a bank.
I am actively seeking new technology and names that will continue to benefit from the current situation of accelerated tech adoption in a brave new world. Work from home is becoming like a drug where you may not want to go back to the office. People are beginning to question the efficiency of business travel.
There will be more breakthroughs as we get 5G and AI innovations in the Big Data and Cloud world. The future looks rosy but many landmines lay ahead. We need to tread carefully to avoid big blowups and be on our toes all the time.
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