by Connor Darrell CFA, Assistant Vice President – Head of Investments
Last week brought an official end to the worst quarter for equities since the 2008 financial crisis, as the global spread of COVID-19 brought many areas of the global economy to a virtual standstill. In our latest quarterly commentary, we provide a brief summary of what became a quarter to forget, as well as an update on why there are still some key factors that should give investors reason for cautious optimism.

A Note on Our Economic Heat Map
As our economic “Heat Map” has been steadily revised lower over the past few weeks, we wanted to take a quick moment to remind readers that the Heat Map is not intended to be used as a market timing mechanism. Our team tracks a variety of economic data and uses it to guide our ratings for the Heat Map. Those ratings are intended to provide a “point in time” assessment of current economic conditions and help to assess where the strengths and weaknesses lie. Of course, the present state of the global economy is drastically different than it was just three months ago, and that is the reality behind the recent reductions to our Heat Map rankings. At present, there is an incredible amount of uncertainty regarding the depth and duration of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our key takeaways from the current rankings of our Heat Map are as follows:

The global economy is under immense pressure as a result of the quarantining efforts being put in place around the globe. In the near-term, we are likely to continue to see historically poor economic data. However, the long-term impacts should be reduced by the incredible amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus being pumped into the economy.