On The One Year Anniversary Of The First Big COVID Sell-Off…

As DB’s Jim Reid reminds us, today is the one year anniversary of the first big Covid sell-off on the Monday after we learned that Italian cases had shot up over the weekend sparking the realization that the virus started to hit Western nations. Monday February 24th 2020 saw a major global correction as Italian case numbers had rocketed over the weekend from single figures to 220.

So how have the most popular global assets done since this date?

This is the question Deutsche Bank addressed today by looking at its universe of key assets – even as it explicitly noted that assets that it did not include in this high level list that have seen even larger moves include Bitcoin (+395.8% over the 12 months) and the NYSE FANG+ Index (+85.8%).

In terms of the S&P 500 and Stoxx 600, in the former the worst 5 performers have been Norwegian Cruise (-39.1%), Carnival (-36.5%), Boeing (-35.8%), United Airlines (-35.1%) and NOV (-34.7%). In the latter we have Galapagos (-71.9%), IAG (-56.0%), Rolls-Royce (-51.9%), Banco de Sabadell (-51.0%) and Carnival (-50.5%).

On the positive side, in the US we have Etsy (+292.5%), Tesla (+287.8%), Freeport-McMoRan (+217.0%), Enphase Energy (+189.2%) and ViacomCBS (+137.1%). In Europe we have Zur Rose (+264.8%), Sinch (+234.3%), HelloFresh (+171.55%), Evolution Gaming (+160.94) and Royal Mail (+155.7%).

As DB’s Jim Reid recaps, “had you been told 12 months ago that we would now have around 113 million recorded cases and 2.5 million recorded deaths with much of the world under lockdown conditions for most of the year, I suspect you would have found it tough to comprehend the course of markets. However, the Fed and the ECB alone have added around $6 trillion to their balance sheet over this past year alongside trillions of fiscal injections. On this topic our US economists yesterday upgraded their US 2021 GDP forecast to +7.5% (Q4/Q4) on the expectation of a $1.6-1.7tn stimulus package soon…. Another major story brewing in a truly remarkable 12 months.”