Is It Over Yet?

The week passed with lots of "opening up" stories pushed in the media. The markets provided a more or less neutral background for all that. Sometimes markets act up and take attention from everything else going on the world. Not this week. 

Stocks and bonds have been mostly range-bound for a couple of weeks. Sure there have been some semi-dramatic ups and downs for stocks. But in the end, not much really happened. Bonds seem to continue a correction from the rising yields that had some claiming the bond bull market begun in the early 80's was over, and we should expect sharply rising yields to eviscerate bond portfolios. Not yet.

Gold has been the most inviting asset in recent weeks. It switched from a correction after a dramatic rise to a resumption of its rise to...well, we'll see how far this leg up goes. The key phrase: this leg up. There should be more to come, even after this leg has its own correction at some point. That's just how markets behave.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, did provide a bit of drama. But, really, how many of us own any crypto currencies? I suspect most who do are either younger folks or raw speculators. And they took it on the chin. But, really, the cryptos rose straight up for weeks. So what did you expect? (If you were surprised or upset, you shouldn't own this stuff.)

With that relatively uneventful background, the opening up news was relentless, along with its partner, the "vaccine" push. The two have been linked of course. Do they need to be? 

Whether they do or do not need to be, they are - for many people. Every day we see new "ads" or "promotions" - or whatever you want to call them - shouting "safe and effective." In conjunction, the theme of getting more people vaccinated so we can all get back to normal is pushed. 

Whether or not it's necessary for more people to be vaccinated in order for masks and all the rest to be set aside isn't discussed. It just is.

With all that, we've come to a point where the vaccinated can take off their masks and the un-vaccinated can't - or ought not to. So far, the operating principle has been "the honor system" rather than any overt enforcement measures to see to it that the mask-on/mask-off system works as designed.

Where do we go from here? Is is (the pandemic) over yet?

For markets, it's an unknown in the near term. Longer-term, we'll eventually see stocks knocked from their lofty perch, having been propped up by loose money from the Fed and artificial stimulation from the government - which theoretically gooses the economy. Bonds will eventually end their decades-long bull market as well - one of these days in the not-too-distant future. As for gold and other precious metals, it's more likely they will pick up steam long-term. After all, history shows us cycles where either stocks or gold hold the upper hand. It's been stocks for a while. Now it may be gold's turn.

At least that's the view from my perch.

As for the vaccine, that's going to be interesting. Unless those who simply don't want the shot relent because of freebies being offered, it's not all that certain we'll have that preponderance of jabbed folks. 

In our neck of the woods, they've posted jabbers at public gathering places: museums, concert venues, the zoo. If you let them stick you, you get in for free. Or if you're not going out, you can find a locale that gives you lottery tickets if you roll up your sleeve. I suppose there are folks who can be swayed to take the jab buy such shenanigans. We'll see.

Meanwhile, we might consider just going about our business without the fear that our leaders have done their best to inject into so many of us. If you're afraid, your choice will be to believe that getting jabbed and having everyone else jabbed is the one and only way your fear will be assuaged. 

Some of us, though, spend time seeking the truth about all this. And doing so has allayed our fears. (I think in the very beginning of this Mess a huge majority of us did feel some fear.)

I don't now if the pandemic is over yet. But it's going to be up to all of us to end the Mess that came with it.