There is one big topic on everyone's mind at the moment. The coronavirus is shutting down cities and requiring co-ordinated actions between Government's and its citizens in a way we haven't seen previously in our lifetime. Financial markets have lost about one-third of their value, and economists suggest that unemployment could get as high as 1-in-5 people. At this point, a recession seems inevitable.
To help us understand what is happening in the economy, and how governments and central banks have responded, Alec (Ren) was joined by David Bassanese, the Chief Economist at Betashares - one of Australia's largest ETF providers. David has worked as an economist at the OECD, Treasury, Bankers Trust and Macquarie Bank, and comes with a wealth of experience and insight.
In this episode, David makes clear that we must think about this as a health crisis first and an economic crisis second. As much as we can look at economic indicators to get a gauge of the economy's performance, the health indicators - testing numbers, infection rate, ICU capacity etc. - are ultimately going to be determinative for how the economy performs in 2020.
We then chat about the response to this crisis - both from the Australian Government and the Reserve Bank of Australia - before finally discussing how individual investors can think about their personal investments at a time like this.
For more information on David - check out his writing on the Betashares website here.
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