The Great Stay-In (Seventh of a Series)

On March 12 we began this special series on COVID-19 with a sense that America would soon be forced out of schools, offices, and all group activity. Little did we know six weeks later 97% (according to one study) of the US population is either at home or sheltering in place.

This state of affairs has completely upended the free-flowing, dynamic nature of the largest, most diversified economy on the planet. Industries, whose most nimble constituents took decades to systematically develop competitive products and services to meet consumer and commercial demand, have been thrown into disarray.

In the early phase of the crisis, investors studied the most obviously vulnerable sectors for signs of weakness. These included travel, leisure, hospitality, gaming, transportation, and retail. Indeed, these industries took almost immediate revenue hits.