It's been a long time since I've written, but living through what may well be the defining months of our time, I wanted to add my experiences and thoughts to the millions that are being expressed on multiple platforms.
In late January, when the first coronavirus news came out, and then in early February, going into Chinese New Year, no one thought it would come to this. There may be some small disruptions, but nothing that would stop the spinning of the world.
And then China put everyone in Hubei in lockdown; then everyone else across China, the first cases outside of China started to crop up, and I remarked that it would probably get worse before it got better, but even then, I did not guess how bad it would become.
My remark came from the supply chain impacts we were seeing - and then it was mostly supply side, with factories unable to come back after CNY. I didn't imagine a demand side disruption of this magnitude.
My Chinese colleagues were trying to ship masks to China, and they were getting held by customs.
I worried about my parents - traveling from India to UAE - travel spread accounted for most of the spread across other parts of the world at that time. I worried about my sister, traveling back to India from the UAE - she would go to visit my grandmother, and even that looked risky. But we were also looking at cheap flights to Asia, and wow! Bangkok looks so cheap!
Events moved fast. First the lockdown in Italy - Milan, the Italian tourists in Agra... it was strange, unbelievable that Italy, then France, Spain, Germany, should all be going into lockdown, and the US was not affected.
Only a few cases here, and of course, the ship parked off the coast of California, waiting to be allowed into port, only Trump didn't want the number of cases to increase (!)
And the cases did seem low - given the amount of travel from just the Bay Area to China and Europe, nothing to say of everywhere else. The numbers had to be artificially low - due to limited testing - everyone knew that. A couple of cases in Seattle, in Los Angeles... no epidemic yet. Markets were still high.
And then the crash as the sudden realization sprung everywhere all at once that this was not going away - there was a rate cut, which seemed to briefly make things better, before turning entirely ineffectual, and then days and days of red bleeding all over the market. Seems like a good time to buy. Except two things - 1) Just when I place a limit order, the markets jump back up 2) I place an order and it goes through, and then the market sinks again.
Things started shutting down everywhere. Microsoft was one of the first companies to recommend working from home. Bay Area companies were slower to respond. Apple was one of the last. Taking it one week at a time, and then they realized that this wasn't going away soon, and extended it to Apr 7th. Will it end by Apr 7th? No one knows. It seems like we may be in this for the long haul.
In late January, when the first coronavirus news came out, and then in early February, going into Chinese New Year, no one thought it would come to this. There may be some small disruptions, but nothing that would stop the spinning of the world.
And then China put everyone in Hubei in lockdown; then everyone else across China, the first cases outside of China started to crop up, and I remarked that it would probably get worse before it got better, but even then, I did not guess how bad it would become.
My remark came from the supply chain impacts we were seeing - and then it was mostly supply side, with factories unable to come back after CNY. I didn't imagine a demand side disruption of this magnitude.
My Chinese colleagues were trying to ship masks to China, and they were getting held by customs.
I worried about my parents - traveling from India to UAE - travel spread accounted for most of the spread across other parts of the world at that time. I worried about my sister, traveling back to India from the UAE - she would go to visit my grandmother, and even that looked risky. But we were also looking at cheap flights to Asia, and wow! Bangkok looks so cheap!
Events moved fast. First the lockdown in Italy - Milan, the Italian tourists in Agra... it was strange, unbelievable that Italy, then France, Spain, Germany, should all be going into lockdown, and the US was not affected.
Only a few cases here, and of course, the ship parked off the coast of California, waiting to be allowed into port, only Trump didn't want the number of cases to increase (!)
And the cases did seem low - given the amount of travel from just the Bay Area to China and Europe, nothing to say of everywhere else. The numbers had to be artificially low - due to limited testing - everyone knew that. A couple of cases in Seattle, in Los Angeles... no epidemic yet. Markets were still high.
And then the crash as the sudden realization sprung everywhere all at once that this was not going away - there was a rate cut, which seemed to briefly make things better, before turning entirely ineffectual, and then days and days of red bleeding all over the market. Seems like a good time to buy. Except two things - 1) Just when I place a limit order, the markets jump back up 2) I place an order and it goes through, and then the market sinks again.
Things started shutting down everywhere. Microsoft was one of the first companies to recommend working from home. Bay Area companies were slower to respond. Apple was one of the last. Taking it one week at a time, and then they realized that this wasn't going away soon, and extended it to Apr 7th. Will it end by Apr 7th? No one knows. It seems like we may be in this for the long haul.
