Member-only story
We’re Not Ready for Another Black Swan Event
Viruses, election angst, and now oil prices are dropping too.
This morning, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY) opened at $275.38, or more than $60/share lower than its 52-week high just twenty days ago. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average cratered 1,400 points over the weekend, vaporizing further trillions in value as investors and world governments alike try to slow down the hemorrhage of money. In the midst of all this, OPEC‘s failure to come to a deal on energy prices has led the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to slash oil production, threatening a massive crash in oil prices and futures.
In other news, it appears increasingly likely that the Democratic Presidential race will be a two-horse affair between former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. As both men have shown surprising momentum in the race, their respective relationships with Wall Street (one cozy, the other decidedly antagonistic) have caused markets to wobble with each passing primary contest.
Finally, we learned this week that Italy has quarantined more than 16 million citizens who may have come in contact with the COVID-19 coronavirus, and the US Department of Health and Human Services still doesn’t have anything like enough testing kits to even slow down the projected spread…
