The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented volatility in recent weeks that has investors and traders scrambling to assess the economic and market impact of the aggressive containment measures.

This past week the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which measures the implied 30-day volatility of the S&P 500 Index based on options contracts, measured its highest reading since its inception at over 82—besting the prior high set during the financial crisis in 2008-2009, shown in the chart below. That is saying something.

As market participants have sought shelter from the storm in traditional safe ha

The incredible volatility continues, with the S&P 500 Index now in one of its worst bear markets ever, along the way making the quickest move from an all-time high to down 30% at only 22 days. What is a long-term investor to do?

“Although market timing is very alluring to investors, especially after the past few weeks, the reality is timing things incorrectly can set you back significantly,” explained LPL Financial Senior Market Strategist Ryan Detrick. “In fact, if you started in 1990 and missed the best day of the year each year for the S&P 500, your annual return was nearly cut in half.”

&nbs

Last week, we revised our economic and market forecasts as the war against the COVID-19 pandemic wages on. We are likely in recession now, though we won’t know that for sure until more timely data is released. What is clear, however, is stocks have priced in a recession. We offer our latest thoughts on the bottoming process and take a deeper dive into our updated economic and market forecasts. 

Where We Are

The global COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most difficult human crises we have ever faced. In addition to the tragic human toll, containment efforts and uncertainty have caused significant economic disruption g

As COVID-19-related fear continues grip global financial markets, we wanted to take a closer look at factor #1 in our Road to Recovery Playbook: confidence in the timing of a peak of new COVID-19 cases in the United States.

This is probably the most difficult signal in the playbook to call with any degree of certainty. We can look to data from countries that were affected earlier for clues, but many country-specific factors contribute to the outcomes, e.g., societal norms (such as greeting with a kiss in Italy), population density, age distributions, prevalence of preexisting health conditions, smoking rates, air pollution, avail