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What It Means to Be an Investor Amid the Global Pandemic

What It Means to Be an Investor Amid the Global Pandemic

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4 years ago

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You can win as an investor during the pandemic, but there is one thing you shouldn’t do: panic.

Investors are no strangers to extreme situations — history’s Great Depression is one of the best examples of this. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents a new type of extreme situation. And the question racing through nearly every investor’s mind is: Can this pandemic offer opportunities despite all the difficulties it presents?

As an investor, I believe the answer is a resounding yes. Extreme situations always provide incredible opportunities for investors. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it doesn’t matter what type of assets you’re looking to invest in — the greatest opportunities always come when times are hard — that is, if you have to have the ability to stay focused. You cannot fall into the fear trap that leads most people to poor money decisions.

A lesson from Bitcoin

Let’s take a look at cryptocurrency as an example. Prior to the pandemic in mid-2019, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) had surged past $13,800. By March 2020, however, the cryptocurrency had plummeted down to around $3,850.

But Bitcoin has seen these types of tumbles and recoveries before. Back in December 2017, Bitcoin was valued at around $20,000. Only one year later, it had crashed to just over $3,100. People who took advantage of the drop and bought Bitcoin at that low enjoyed watching their investment not double or even triple — but quadruple.

Today, we are already seeing Bitcoin recover from its crash to the $3,000s. This is because the drop was based only on paranoia. It is this same paranoia that sent countless other investments crashing. As people get control of their fear, they start trusting Bitcoin again, and we’ve been seeing the currency rally lately.

This idea of getting into investments when prices have plummeted — what advisors and seasoned investors call “contrarian investing” — isn’t new. Renowned investor Nathan Rothschild snapped up opportunities after the battle of Waterloo when everybody else was panicking, famously saying that “the time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.” He’s not alone. Many other successful people from the past understood how amazing opportunities can be found even within an environment as extreme as COVID-19.

For more contemporary examples, just look to Warren Buffet, Kevin O’Leary and Ray Dalio — they’re just some of the famous business leaders who insist on keeping control over fears when markets experience panic, whether it’s due to a global illness or a different kind of crisis. Their consistent recommendation is to play the long game and resist the urge to sell-off. And, if you pick investments to purchase in a down market that have overall upward trends over years or decades, you can make some serious gains.

Given what former and current investors have done when times are tough, opportunities like Bitcoin can be found throughout the COVID-19 crisis, and they’re very appealing. This sentiment applies to all potential investments, not just cryptocurrencies. The innovations that companies have been developing in response to the crisis are likely to put them on an even stronger footing for the future. And your selection doesn’t have to be limited to well-known companies or assets, either. Many startups are finding ways to fill gaps, and they’re reimagining the usual ways of operating, too. Consider getting in on the ground floor to support new companies and entrepreneurs who can address inefficiencies or needs COVID-19 has exposed. As always, the more diverse your investments, the better.

Digital options might win over traditional investments — but be patient

When you adopt a long-term outlook, you’ll see that your common, typical banking products can be incredibly volatile — they’re fear-based currencies whose values get influenced easily by what people feel in the moment. So, with a crisis like COVID-19, we’ll probably see a sharp decline on those options as well as a devaluation of the dollar, the euro and other major fiat currencies.

To be fair, digital investments like cryptocurrencies aren’t totally immune from emotional reactions, either. But as COVID-19 continues, people might not want to allocate their wealth to the standard banking products, which are so paranoia-driven — this could mean a major uptick for investments in digital assets and cryptocurrencies.

Therefore, in my opinion, these times have the potential to be amazing for investors. If you are trying to break into the cryptocurrency market, then, yes, Bitcoin has already recovered from its lowest. But there are still great opportunities ahead, and there’s time to jump into smart choices. If you decide to look into cryptocurrency or digital options like Ether (ETH), remember to be patient and hold onto the currency, because they’ll all eventually recover. In fact, the opportunity for these assets might be bigger than we’ve ever seen before.

You can be a successful investor even now — see beyond the pandemic, do your homework and always use your head.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Michael Gastauer is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist. He is an advocate of the fintech revolution and is globally ranked among the 100 most Influential People in fintech. The Gastauer Family Office he manages is one of the largest single-family offices in Europe. He is also the founder and CEO of Black Banx Group, a fintech ranked among the fastest-growing companies, reaching a $9.8 billion valuation in less than four years.

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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3 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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4 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Another beloved brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The beer industry has been devastated by covid, changing tastes, and maybe fallout from the Bud Light scandal.

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4 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Before the covid pandemic, craft beer was having a moment. Most cities had multiple breweries and taprooms with some having so many that people put together the brewery version of a pub crawl.

It was a period where beer snobbery ruled the day and it was not uncommon to hear bar patrons discuss the makeup of the beer the beer they were drinking. This boom period always seemed destined for failure, or at least a retraction as many markets seemed to have more craft breweries than they could support.

Related: Fast-food chain closes more stores after Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The pandemic, however, hastened that downfall. Many of these local and regional craft breweries counted on in-person sales to drive their business. 

And while many had local and regional distribution, selling through a third party comes with much lower margins. Direct sales drove their business and the pandemic forced many breweries to shut down their taprooms during the period where social distancing rules were in effect.

During those months the breweries still had rent and employees to pay while little money was coming in. That led to a number of popular beermakers including San Francisco's nationally-known Anchor Brewing as well as many regional favorites including Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing, New Jersey’s Flying Fish, Denver’s Joyride Brewing, Tampa’s Zydeco Brew Werks, and Cleveland’s Terrestrial Brewing filing bankruptcy.

Some of these brands hope to survive, but others, including Anchor Brewing, fell into Chapter 7 liquidation. Now, another domino has fallen as a popular regional brewery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Overall beer sales have fallen.

Image source: Shutterstock

Covid is not the only reason for brewery bankruptcies

While covid deserves some of the blame for brewery failures, it's not the only reason why so many have filed for bankruptcy protection. Overall beer sales have fallen driven by younger people embracing non-alcoholic cocktails, and the rise in popularity of non-beer alcoholic offerings,

Beer sales have fallen to their lowest levels since 1999 and some industry analysts

"Sales declined by more than 5% in the first nine months of the year, dragged down not only by the backlash and boycotts against Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light but the changing habits of younger drinkers," according to data from Beer Marketer’s Insights published by the New York Post.

Bud Light parent Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD) faced massive boycotts after it partnered with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. It was a very small partnership but it led to a right-wing backlash spurred on by Kid Rock, who posted a video on social media where he chastised the company before shooting up cases of Bud Light with an automatic weapon.

Another brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Gizmo Brew Works, which does business under the name Roth Brewing Company LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 8. In its filing, the company checked the box that indicates that its debts are less than $7.5 million and it chooses to proceed under Subchapter V of Chapter 11. 

"Both small business and subchapter V cases are treated differently than a traditional chapter 11 case primarily due to accelerated deadlines and the speed with which the plan is confirmed," USCourts.gov explained. 

Roth Brewing/Gizmo Brew Works shared that it has 50-99 creditors and assets $100,000 and $500,000. The filing noted that the company does expect to have funds available for unsecured creditors. 

The popular brewery operates three taprooms and sells its beer to go at those locations.

"Join us at Gizmo Brew Works Craft Brewery and Taprooms located in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Find us for entertainment, live music, food trucks, beer specials, and most importantly, great-tasting craft beer by Gizmo Brew Works," the company shared on its website.

The company estimates that it has between $1 and $10 million in liabilities (a broad range as the bankruptcy form does not provide a space to be more specific).

Gizmo Brew Works/Roth Brewing did not share a reorganization or funding plan in its bankruptcy filing. An email request for comment sent through the company's contact page was not immediately returned.

 

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