With the arrival of Covid-19, more commonly known as the Coronavirus, in the United States in January of 2020, it seems as though our very way of life has been turned upside down. With a >30% selloff from the peak in the stock market earlier this year, retirement plans for many of our citizens have been delayed or pushed out further to say the least. Trillions of dollars of wealth that has taken years to build up has vanished in three short weeks. Institutional asset managers on Wall Street have shorted the market and flat out shed stock ownership driving prices to levels last seen when Donald Trump was first elected President.

The effects of diminished retirement assets for investors and decreased market capitalization for our corporations cause everyone to feel uneasy. Corporate credit lines will likely be depleted as employers attempt to prevent laying off tens of thousands of their employees in order to help them survive this crisis and workers within two to three years of retirement are being forced to rethink whether they have enough assets to live on when they stop working.

The effects of this pandemic which originated out of the Wuhan region in China will be felt for a long time. Even if the stock market bounces back quickly, the number of lost jobs will likely plunge the United States into recession. My hope is that the major stimulus package being passed by the US government will be enough to get us back on track and Americans back to work where they should be.