Winners and losers of COVID. Which one will you be?
The world economy took a real beating in 2020, but not everyone is on the losing side. In this blog post, we will talk about the winners and losers of COVID, and more importantly, how small investors of the market can prevent losses or even gain a competitive advantage over others by using a tool that makes information gathering a much easier task.
The events of 2020 are too complex to express in a few words. From the perspective of the masses, it all started with the news of a respiratory virus in China. Fast forward a few months, and now millions of jobs across the globe vanished, investors are looking for safe havens to prevent their losses, and economies are on the brink with the expansion of budget deficits to near-wartime levels.
During the first few months of the pandemic, small investors suffered from immense uncertainty about how to handle the situation. Most of their stocks started to lose value as unexpected external factors hit every industry, but at the end of the day, they had three options.
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Liquidate every investment.
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Keep stocks and wait for the storm to pass.
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Rearrange portfolio.
It is not a big surprise that those who went with option three, followed the relevant news, and invested in companies like Zoom, Teladoc Health, and Netflix not only retained the value of their portfolio but increased it too.
Good business opportunities arose during the pandemic, and those who were quick enough could now reap the return on their investments. BrightMeUp! is a tool that can support such business decisions, but more on that later.
Europe, the U.S., and Asia.
First, let’s talk about the global economic effects of the pandemic. Recently, life in Beijing has returned to normal, while things in the U.S. and Europe don’t look so good for the next 6 or 12 months.
According to research, in Asian and Pacific countries where COVID-related policies got implemented early, the economic rebound is quicker. While it is true that the economics of these countries differ, the response to the virus still made a notable impact on the outcome.
The main difference was that European countries postponed lockdowns and eased restrictions during the summer. At the same time, the Asia-Pacific region suppressed COVID-19 to lower levels and maintained tighter controls.
“If you can control the virus, you can get 95% of your life back,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “In the U.S. and Europe, we wanted to get our lives back, so we acted as if the virus was under control. In Asia, they were not in denial. They understood they can have their lives back if they follow certain precautions.”
The difference between economies is an important point too.
During a global pandemic, it is much harder to run service-sector businesses that rely on face-to-face contact than operating factories where social distancing is an easier task. During the third quarter, an economic rebound surfaced in Europe too, but with the infections on the rise again and lockdowns are imminent, it won’t last long.
COVID winners – Will China grow?
The overall effects of the COVID epidemic are different on a global scale. According to the Consensus forecast for 2020, European countries report lowering GDP while all-in-all China will increase the size of its economy. The same information is present in the outlook of the OECD. They forecast that by the end of 2021, the U.S. economy will be almost the same as it was in 2019, while China’s will be 10% larger.
Things are even looking worse for Europe, where the GDP won’t reach its pre-pandemic level for several years. On the other hand, let’s not forget the fact that consumption is lagging in China too.
The manufacturing hubs of Asia benefited from the shift to consuming goods instead of services and the increased global demand for medical goods such as masks and home office necessities. But this sudden increase will regress, and a more conventional recession may start to fold out in these countries.
Who are the biggest COVID winners?
Thousands of different aspects should be taken into account to answer that question with a single country or company. But there is one thing that is common in all of the winners: the ability to adapt quickly to the changing circumstances the pandemic creates.
If we want to talk about the companies that are the winners of COVID (in stock value), there are the usual suspects that come to the mind of everyone who hears about the subject. Tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, everyone’s favorite streaming platform Netflix, and Amazon are all on the list. After an initial setback, the stock value of all of these companies increased. Most of them are now at a five-year high level.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce sales growth in the U.S. was 45% in the second quarter, representing the topmost quarterly increase since the fourth quarter of 2000. But as the virus wanes, consumers will most likely be shifting back to offline shopping, slowing the rapid growth of the sector.
However, according to Stifel, a full-service brokerage and investment banking firm, investing in Amazon, eBay, Carvana, Vroom, and Etsy should be a decent choice as these companies will continue to benefit from the effects of the pandemic.
What can small investors do?
Now the question remains: how can a small investor of the market be part of the winning team? You need to adapt to the new circumstances, and for that, you need quick, reliable industry information from trusted sources.
During the first months of the year, articles about the rising demand for telehealth services surfaced on the internet. There is a possibility that you missed these articles and therefore skipped on a great investment opportunity that would have been prosperous. Now you have the chance to make sure you never make that mistake again.
How? By using an innovative AI tool that collects only the relevant information for you. There are a whole lot of pieces of investing advice and news scattered across the internet by a tremendous amount of sources. A small investor of the market may not have the time to visit several different sites, then filter the articles to find what he needs.
What is BrightMeUp!?
BrightMeUp! is an advanced information hub that eliminates research hours with a revolutionary meaning-based search engine and the artificial intelligence tool Avatar that learns just like a human.
Avatars have up-to-date information on any topic users need: they learn, interpret, and select relevant articles – from a specialized database for professionals – to save time for users. It is important to note that all the sources applied are based on recommendations by market leaders. This feature guarantees that you will only read factual information published by trusted sources of the affected industry.
Several Avatars follow different aspects of COVID-19. However, in this post, you will only find links to the ones that follow the economic effects of the pandemic.
Avatars related to COVID winners
Avatars learn a topic like a human being. We taught the currently available Avatars with the help of dozens of articles at the time of their creation. As a result, Avatars learned to distinguish relevant and non-relevant content according to their topic.
The trained Avatar continuously collects, reads, and selects the latest articles on the topic, which you can read in the feed. This feature saves you time, so instead of searching for information, you can read what you wanted to know in the first place. If there is a topic which you cannot find an Avatar for, you can request one.
As you will notice, the subject of an Avatar can either be broad or narrow. General topics like Coronavirus – Economic Impact tend to have articles that cover more aspects of the epidemic, and smaller talking points like Consumer behavior tendencies affected by COVID19 will have fine-tuned results.
Here is a list of COVID-19-related Avatars you can follow instantly:
COVID-19-related economic news in the Fintech database
Are you in a winning business?
Which businesses gain on COVID-19, and who loses?
Consumer behavior tendencies affected by COVID-19
This Avatar examines consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on short and long-term buying tendencies.
What SMEs and Corporate need to know.
How COVID-19, social conflicts, and natural disasters affect the economy of powerful nations.
EU recovery activities to Covid-19
Economic reactions on Covid-19.
COVID-19-related economic news in the Healthwatch database
This Avatar aims to follow the problem set of the recession on a global scale. Also, it examines the effects of Covid-19 on international markets, currencies, and willingness to invest.
Follow the recession problem set in respect of the U.S. To what extent and how does Covid-19 influence the development of the recession in the United States?
Recession in Australia and Covid-19
Follow the recession problem set in respect of Australia.
Recession in Europe and Covid-19
Follow the recession problem set in respect of Europe.
Explore
If you want to delve deeper into a topic, the meaning-based search engine in the Explore interface ensures that you can find what you want. The phrase meaning-based search engine means that instead of simple keywords, you can start a search with longer texts as input. You can use a single paragraph or even copy an entire document into the search window.
Above all, this feature allows you to search for a complex topic that cannot be described by a single keyword. Based on the meaning of the text you enter, you will receive (accurate) results in order of relevance or chronology.
So if you find some exciting content about the winners of COVID-19 and want to search for something similar, copy the summary of the article or the whole text to the search window of the Explore page and hit the search icon.
It is important to note that we do not save your search history and do not build user profiles. Search hits are displayed solely based on the content of the search text.
News
Up-to-date news appears in this section. In the feed (News), you can define what you want to read. First, select the Avatar you are interested in, and after that, you can immediately start to read its news. Quickly, easily.
To stay up-to-date on the economic effects of COVID-19, select an Avatar, and follow its news. From now on, you won’t have to spend time searching and filtering the available information.
In conclusion, use BrightMeUp! to gather information and be on the winning side of COVID-19. It is easy, reliable, and much faster than browsing several different sites for those few articles you need.
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