So which stocks will be positively affected after Covid-19 ?

[Devon Prescott]

Dennis,

I think you are right on the nose. No one KNOWS what is going to happen in the long or short term (no one who on earth anyway). I will confess that investing gives me some illusion of control and keeps me from being bitter when things turn down (I am the only one I can blame). Some people have a very different outlook and I would never try to dissuade them.

I would encourage everyone who has a sunny patch of lawn to put in a garden this year. If we bounce back it will be fresh vegetables to enjoy and share. If this turns worse you may have a meal or two without having to pay or leave home.

[dennis thompson]

I thought I'd update this thread. I bought Zoom at the end of March for $150/share. It immediately proceeded to go to $113 in a week or two, since then it has gone back to $150 despite some bad publicity about security. Go figure!

[Ron Citerone]

Aaron, yes I'm sure there are many savvy stock investors here who are quite successful picking winner stocks and bonds. But I think in terms of the average everyday investors who would not have the time or interest to adequately analyze the financials of 10-12 companies each week, hoping to pick a portfolio of winners. I'm afraid the average investor buys stock on the recommendation of Marketwatch, Jim Cramer, etc. with no personal research into the companies he is buying. This is akin to picking your winners off the tip sheet at the racetrack. Instead of having an investment strategy it more like gambling. Certainly folks can successfully use different investing strategies. There are many investors who have been successful with the mutual fund strategy that I have suggested. Perhaps you have heard of Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, second largest investment company in the US. True to Vanguard investing, I have never used a "highly" commissioned sales person and only invest in low cost index funds. I have no financial credentials to give advice, my thoughts are given freely and in the spirit of sharing my investing experiences with this community. I have been investing for over 40 years and spent early years chasing the hot stocks and the hot mutual funds. Sometimes successful but many times taking a bath. My wife and I have never been high income earners but I'm very satisfied with the nice portfolio we have accumulated over years by investing a proper asset allocation in stock and bond mutual funds. My days of chasing the hot stocks are over. I learned early I was not smart enough, nor had the time to pick and follow them. My challenge was not so much when to buy a company's beaten down stock but at what point do you sell. I sleep much better not making constant buy and sell decisions.

Addeum: My thoughts are only shared in the view of long term investing, 5 years or more. If you are a day trader, short term less than a year investor, God bless you, that is a totally different ballgame more akin to the racetrack strategy. My best wishes for your success.

Agree completely, and there is a lot of data to back what you posted. Jack Bogle is a true hero IMO!

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Please don’t get me wrong. I agree that not everyone is suited to buying individual stocks, and totally agree that for safety, an index fund is a great product. In fact, I’m buying 2 index funds as Bar Mitzvah presents for my eldest twin grandsons.
My only point was that, like all advice, any blanket statement is subject to the proviso “In my opinion.......”.
I’ve had a number of breathtaking losses in individual stocks, and some stunning successes. But, I’m semi retired, and I find the pursuit of a greater nest egg for my older age a technical challenge.
l also am not advocating that “individual stocks are the only way”. It’s just that looking at the holdings of index funds, and seeing how they perform is just as daunting a task as picking stocks. Both require a lot of effort, unless you have a financial advisor, in which case the fee structure rears it’s ugly head.
Whatever the choice, it’s yours.

[Roger Feeley]

I’m going to predict that face masks will be common for the foreseeable future. At the very least they will be well tolerated. This would be bad news for Big Brother. Any company marketing mass facial recognition would have a problem. If I don’t want to be scanned, I wear a mask and no one will be suspicious. This is already a problem for the racial profilers. They see a black guy in a mask and think gang member.

[Michael Drew]

I suspect Abbott Laboratories will move up. I'm actually a bit surprised it has not taken off yet.

[Bill Dufour]

A month in and Clorox has not really moved. Tesla is starting to go up after tanking . They have shut down production so that means they are not losing as much money as when they were open. They have never made a profit so stopping production reduces costs.
They were the classic business model of they lost money on every sale but made up for it with volume.
Bil lD

[Edwin Santos]

Tesla is starting to go up after tanking . They have shut down production so that means they are not losing as much money as when they were open. They have never made a profit so stopping production reduces costs.
They were the classic business model of they lost money on every sale but made up for it with volume.
Bil lD

Maybe check your facts. Tesla was profitable for four of the past six reported quarters. This is one of the reasons their stock has run up so much in the past 6 months.

[Bill Dufour]

I say you have to make profit in a year to count as being a real business.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/29/2...evenue-model-3

[Devon Prescott]

If anyone followed me into Silver I am getting out now; offered as a PSA. I think the strength of the USD is going to curb the silver climb. There may be some more money in silver but for now, I'm taking my profits to help offset my losses in everything else.

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Take your profit right now. It's gone up to $174 a few minutes ago.

[Edwin Santos]

Take your profit right now. It's gone up to $174 a few minutes ago.

Out of curiosity, are you guys talking about an ETF or miner or something else? Spot price for silver is like $16.75. What went up to $174?

[Alan Caro]

dennis thompson,

Probably the tragic, inevitable bankruptcy of small businesses will increase business towards online sales. There have been a number of articles the last couple of days to the effect; "Will Jeff Bezos become the World's first Trillionaire", citing 2026 as the possible date. Every business would do well to create an online presence. Note the early demise of J.C. Penny and J. Crew and those companies already had been tshifting to online sales.

Another side effect of the lockdowns and social distancing is the number of people that are working from home. This effect is likely to have some staying power too. Twitter has more or less is announced that in the future, all employees may work from home permanently. The implications are towards increased and more powerful home computer hardware purchases, so workstation manufacturers will do well. It's anecdotal, but as I've been shopping for a new video card, a Quadro RTX 4000, it appears that there are suddenly there are no used ones for sale and the prices of used ones have gone up substantially. There must be a lot of new home-bound Solidworks engineers. And then there is as you mentioned, the communication aspect with Skype, Zoom et al is doing well and that may be partly maintained, but may mean that it will peak and then drop. The sudden rush to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and etc. will be temporary. I've had Netflix a couple of times and I'm clearly not in their target demographic- I run out of interest very quickly, although a few of their in-house productions have been terrific. Loved, for example, "The Highwaymen" and their release of "The Irishman".

With energy, oil futures can only go up, but the very near-time shift to electric vehicles may moderate that. I think Volvo is planning to stop production of gas-powered cars as of 2022 or 3. Even Porsche is making an all-electric, 4-door sedan, the Taycan and that is quietly faster than Lamborghinis for $100,000 less and with a two door bonus. As the charging infrastructure increases, the companies in on high volume all-electric early and successfully will be good bets, but the high cost of the development and plant conversion may moderate that as an investment. There is also the prospect of the long-promised driverless cars and that could cause some sudden shifts, no pun intended.

In the financial market, the number of potential foreclosures and loan defaults do not make that an attractive realm.

Another, more encompassing idea is the notion that wealth inequality between rich and poor is likely to increase, meaning that either simple commodities and services that everyone must have, meaning things that are cheaply produced by the millions or the rarefied high-end, bespoke and custom will be good bets.

The virus in combination with the inevitable political back and forth up through the election I predict will send the market in wild swings every other day.

The old adage that in chaos there is opportunity has been true, but "opportunity" can be more dangerous than a direct and obvious threat. RE: the aforementioned term, "wild swings every other day".

I for one am not doing any gambling,..

Alan

[dennis thompson]

So to show I do eat my own cooking, I'll post this update on my original post. I bought Zoom at $150.50 and it is now at $174.83, I bought Teladoc at $163.72 and it is now at $184.23. In both cases the stocks have been pretty volatile.
Note that, had these stocks gone down, I NEVER would have updated this post

I did hear an Angel investor make a fairly compelling case that "work at home" had been growing slowly and that the Covid 19 virus has pushed us much more quickly into this process. If you think about it, there are many benefits to the business, particularly in savings on Real estate/rents, they can hire from any where in the world, etc, and the worker at home saves on commuting (I used to drive 86 miles a day to work, so car depreciation, gas , maintenance, tolls will go down dramatically).
To be honest, I'm retired, but I still think I'd rather go into an office, maybe work at home one or two days a week, just a gut feel, not a scientific analysis.
As to Teladoc, I hear ads all the time ,here in New Jersey, about a tela medicine "visit" for $20 and free for people on Medicare.

I plan to keep these stocks, while they are both highly valued, I'm thinking maybe they'd be acquired by one of the bigger companies, (Hey Apple, are you listening?)
Of course, if they should the go down, you'll never hear from me again.

[Devon Prescott]

Out of curiosity, are you guys talking about an ETF or miner or something else? Spot price for silver is like $16.75. What went up to $174?

I was in SLV an ETF. I planned to sell at 15.80 but reading the tea leaves (stronger dollar, sluggish metals in general) I got out "early". I don't know about 174 - I would be having someone post for me if silver got that high yesterday. SLV lags spot silver is a fairly interesting pattern over time if you like that sort of thing...

Note: I don't really think SLV (or any metal ETF) can be a long term strategy over time (decades) for me. When a fund says in its own prospectus that it is intended to lose value over time - you should take that to heart. However, the sheer volatility of an ETF in a situation like we had in March when the AI traders were dim and slow makes for a short-term ladder for a small parasite like me.

Now, if you have 50,000 shares of SLV ETF you can work with a "qualified purchaser" to take physical delivery. This is what sort of ties SLV to silver. In the last 2 months this would be very exciting if one bought SLV at the low 11s (I did that), owed 50k shares (I did not) and then took delivery now. You would be exploiting big increase in the EFT, the difference between SLV and spot, and the large (And very alarming from my standpoint) difference between Spot and Street prices.

Rant warning: I get why ETFs lag Spot prices, no complaints. But we have had HUGE delta between Spot and Street for MONTHS now. Go to any major metal site that ships you silver and see what they have "in stock" and what it costs. Some are "out of stock" and say they can't get physical silver (clue #1). Others are charging 11 to 13 USD over Spot silver (clue #2). Read stores online about folks trying to take delivery of gold, silver, and platinum in the last few months (clue #3). This is not something I have seen in many decades investing - Some gravity that is not visible in the light of day is involved in these artificially low spot prices.