The crisis has seen unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy responses around the world. So what are the implications for investments?
Greg Jensen
Co-chief investment officer, Bridgewater (United States)
Jensen joined Bridgewater in 1996. He oversees Bridgewater’s investment strategies and research efforts. He is also integral in overseeing investment talent and the firm’s account management and trading processes. In 2010, 2011, and 2012, he was named one of business’s rising stars in Fortune magazine’s Top 40 Under 40. Jensen has earned a degree in economics and applied mathematics from Dartmouth College.
Colin Tate has been an investment industry media publisher and conference producer since 1996. In his media career, Tate has launched and overseen dozens of print and electronic publications. He is the chief executive and major shareholder of Conexus Financial, which was formed in 2005, and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. The company stages more than 20 conferences and events each year – in London, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Beijing, Sydney and Melbourne – and publishes five media brands, including the global website and strategy newsletter for global institutional investors conexust1f.flywheelstaging.com. One of the company’s signature events is the bi-annual Fiduciary Investors Symposium. Conexus Financial’s events aim to place the responsibilities of investors in wider societal, and political contexts, as well as promote the long-term stability of markets and sustainable retirement incomes. Tate served for seven years on the board of Australia’s most high profile homeless charity, The Wayside Chapel; and he has underwritten the welfare of 60,000 people in 28 villages throughout Uganda via The Hunger Project.
Key takeaways
- COVID-19 has accelerated trends that we thought would play out over a decade.
- The COVID-19 shock has mainly been a shock to corporations (not households), leaving a monumental hole in corporate balance sheets.
- The Developed World Populism Index has spiked significantly in recent years.
- It has never been more difficult to be an investor. Diversification is more important than ever but more difficult than ever to achieve.
- The hole in the real economy is harder to fill than the hole in the financial economy.
- Companies are recognising that if they are not willing to proactively become more purposeful, they will be forced to do so (or forced out of existence).
- We can get through this difficult period – it was done after each World War, but there will be very tricky policy decisions to make along the way as policy makers will have to prioritise what they want to achieve.
