2020 - Global Insurance Stock Review - Q1 2020
What a difference a quarter makes! The share price levels and robust percentage gain statistics shown in our year-end report now seem implausibly high in the pandemic-driven world we now occupy. Most major equities indexes actually rose from year end levels through February, before COVID-19 emerged to savage lives and economies. As its fury became widely understood, the S&P 500 Index, as a good example, fell 30% in less than a month, with other market measures around the world plunging in a like manner. Beginning March 9, global fear about the spread of the coronavirus, the precipitous drop in oil prices, and the general shock about a looming recession/depression sent investors into a panic.