4 Pandemics – Watch the Second Wave.

While attention is focused on the overall scale of COVID-19, from many of the leading specialists at Imperial College, Hong Kong University, and Harvard University. If this is a pandemic, which looks more and more likely by the day. Where is this pandemic currently in the pandemic cycle? Is it early in the cycle? Halfway through the cycle? Or is it at the end of the cycle?

If we take the Ray Dalio principle, “Wherein history has this happened before?”. Many times, we have to go back in time where the current generation experiencing a difficult event wasn’t even alive when the past event occurred or was too young to be aware of it.  What historical examples can we look at, to see what has happened during past pandemic waves? The Government of New Zealand in their pandemic preparation has put together an analysis of four major pandemics going back more than 130 years.

While the first wave gets everyone’s attention as a pandemic takes hold. Commonly there is a second and third wave that has been far more serious than the first wave.  As the former FDA Chair, Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a recent interview, “the next 2-4 weeks will be the most important to see what happens next”. If history repeats, it will be the second wave that is most concerning.

Will silver be a store of value for investors if COVID-19 escalates further?

During the 1889-1892 pandemic, silver prices rose during the first phase of the pandemic to a high of $1.06/oz in 1890. As the pandemic got worse in 1891, the silver price then fell and continued to fall until the end of the pandemic in 1892.

The Spanish Flu saw the silver price accelerate during this time period, from $0.90 at the end of 1917, to a high of $1.36/oz by March 1919 when the pandemic finally subsided.

BY PAUL for First Macro Capital