2B ❚ WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2020 ❚ USA TODAY MONEY
markets can offer perspective of how
markets have tumbled and later recov-
ered.
This is the fastest bear
Only the Great Depression and the
1987 Black Monday crash come close to
matching the speed with which this
downturn has turned into a bear market.
This bear market was 10 times faster
than the average of 164 days.
Markets could
be choppy for weeks
History doesn’t suggest there will be a
bottom in the near future. While we may
not experience massive declines such as
those we’ve endured in recent weeks, it’s
important to note that the shortest bear
market lasted three months.
Bears cut more deeply
These are still the early days of this
bear market, and while the rapid descent
of stocks might make this feel like a his-
torically sharp fall, so far, the market de-
cline is smaller than the average bear.
The S&P 500 has fallen by about 40% on
average.
It’s a long way back up
Once the bear market is over, getting
back to the top often has been a long
climb. No climb matches that of the
Great Depression stock market. It took
about 25 years (Sept. 22, 1954) for the
S&P index to reach 31.92 after it closed
there on Sept. 7, 1929.
The return to a peak has been signifi-
cantly shorter in other bear markets, but
it’s taken 3.3 years on average for inves-
tors to get back to where they started.
Just hang on
If you sold your S&P 500 mutual funds
or ETFs before Feb. 19, you’re one of the
lucky ones. Rarely are any of us so lucky.
Avoiding sell-offs is difficult, if not im-
possible. Investors often sell when U.S.
markets suffer staggering losses as they
have in the past few weeks, and they may
be left behind when stocks make their
biggest advances.
Consider how much you would have
gained if you had sold before 10 of the
worst days during the past 10 years.
If you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500
on March 9, 2010, you would have made
$40,042 over the past decade or an
18.8% annual gain, according to Ned Da-
vis Research.
Most of us aren’t prescient enough to
know what tomorrow will bring – espe-
cially right now. So you could try to buy
and sell at just the right times, but just
doing nothing might have a similar re-
sult.
When is it safe to go back in?
“Don’t try to catch a falling knife” is a
warning repeated frequently in times
like this. When markets have fallen so
significantly, it’s tempting to think the
market is on sale one day only to see it
decline the next.
If you did sell recently, how do you
know when things are getting back to
normal?
One measure would be the volatility
index created by the Chicago Board Op-
tions Exchange – ticker symbol: VIX.
Some have called it the “fear gauge” be-
cause it indicates when investors are
buying protection against declines in the
market.
When the VIX begins closing higher
than 20, it often indicates that investors
are seeing troubling signs in the market.
Similarly, when the VIX starts to fall
back to normal levels, investors foresee
more regular market conditions in the
near future.In recent days the VIX has climbed to
levels not even seen during the finan-
cial crisis in October 2008, signaling
the continued uncertainty brought on
by the coronavirus pandemic.SOURCE S&P Dow Jones Indices; 1 — lowest bear market close on March 17SOURCE Yahoo! Finance0
-20%’29 ’37 ’46 ’56 ’61 ’66 ’68 ’73 ’80 ’87 ’90 ’00 ’07 ’-40%-60%-80%-86.2%-29.5%^1-25.3%How long it took to return to the previous peak
Volatility index hit historic high on Monday
How far the S&P 500 tumbled in each bear market
July 1990-Feb. 1991 Jan. 1973-July 1980
Return to 369 Return to^1206 months, 28 days 7 years, 6 months5 years, 5 months0-10%-20%-30%-40%-50%-60%Largest decline:56.8%-56.8%49.80.82.75.Oct. 2007-March 2013S&P 500
change4020Financial crisisCoronavirus pandemic600-20%-40%-60%40206080800-20%-40%Oct. 9, 2007Feb. 12 March 17March 9, 2009CBOE Volatility Index% change in S&P 500Bear market
Continued from Page 1B
noted that job seekers “could be placed
for employment within several days of
applying.”
The workers who stock shelves, op-
erate registers and deliver meals, gro-
ceries and medicine are filling a vital
role, as government officials shutters
restaurants, ban large gatherings and
advise the public to stay behind closed
doors.
San Francisco was one of six North-
ern California counties that issued an
order Monday mandating that every-
one in the city “shelter in place, that is,
stay at home, except for certain essen-
tial activities and work.” Among the
exceptions who will be allowed to
leave their homes for work are those in
the government, those working on the
construction of public infrastructure –
and grocery store employees, as well
as those delivering household prod-
ucts and food.
“With so many stores and restau-
rants closing, delivery workers are
now the linchpin that connects busi-
nesses to consumers,” says Neil Saun-
ders, managing director of retail con-
sultancy Global Data. “Without them,
many businesses will simply grind to a
complete halt.”Becoming an essential workforceJust as concerns about COVID-
are ramping up demand, the virus
could also hinder deliveries if workers
fall ill.
“The worry is that with delivery vol-
umes increasing and more people like-
ly to fall sick, delivery networks could
come under increasing pressure,”
Saunders says. “I think we are likely to
see some retailers cut back on fast de-
livery promises in favor of broad win-
dows like delivery within three to five
days.”
Alberto Oca, a partner in the strate-
gic operations practice of Kearney, a
global and management consulting
firm, added that hiring now is a smart
move. “Shippers and warehouse oper-
ators need to rapidly have backfill la-
bor shifts,” he said. “Cases are touched
by multiple hands in the warehouses,
so COVID-19 will impact.”Orders likely to growDemand is likely to increase as gov-
ernment leaders ban dining at restau-
rants and bars.
Governors in six states – California,
Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Wash-
ington and New York – have said they
will close or have already closed shut-
ter eateries to prevent people from
gathering and potentially speeding the
spread of the virus. In most cases, only
delivery or take out will be allowed.
“What we can’t have is people con-
gregating and seated,” Ohio Gov. Mike
DeWine said on Twitter.
Several mayors say they will impose
similar measures.
“We are all first-responders in this
crisis,’’ Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcet-
ti said in a statement announcing that
local restaurants, bars and other retail
food sellers would be barred from
serving diners on-site through noon
March 31.
“I don’t take these steps lightly, but
they are absolutely necessary because
our decisions today have the power to
slow the spread of the virus and save
lives.’’
Delivery was already on the rise as
more Americans are choosing to pur-
chase meals and then eat them at
home.
Americans spent $450 billion on
restaurant meals during the 12 months
that ended in January and 48.5% of
those purchases were for takeout or-
ders, deliveries and meals picked up
from a drive-through window, accord-
ing to the NPD Group, a market re-
search firm.
“Delivery has been growing for the
past few years, and we would expect
delivery growth to accelerate as many
communities ask restaurants to close
with the exception of take (out) and
delivery,” says NPD food analyst David
Portalatin, who said that delivery rep-
resented 3.4% of all restaurant orders
last year.
With 80% of food deliveries, other
than pizza, coming from third-party
services like Grubhub or Door Dash, he
added “it is reasonable to expect that
orders from these platforms will accel-
erate.”
To protect drivers, Door Dash says
it’s passing out hand sanitizers, gloves
and wipes in areas that have seen an
outbreak. It’s also telling customers
that they can specify their meals be
left on their doorstep and can even
provide a picture of the exact spot in
the app.Businesses
Continued from Page 1BAs millions of Americans navigate the
COVID-19 pandemic, they’re rushing to
grocery stores to stock up on important
items.
But before you drop that box of cereal
or loaf of bread into your cart, pay extra
attention to the pricing label at the store.
A viral tweet posted Sunday by Suit
Up Maine, a progressive group describ-
ing itself as seeking to build a “more in-
formed and engaged electorate in
Maine,” encourages shoppers to recon-
sider buying items showing the “WIC” la-
bel next to the price.
“People who use WIC to feed their kids
can’t switch to another brand or kind of
food,” reads their tweet. “If a store runs
out of WIC-approved options, they will
go home empty-handed.” The tweet gen-
erated nearly 32,000 likes as of Tuesday
morning.
The WIC Program, or Special Supple-
mental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children, is run by the De-
partment of Agriculture’s Food and Nu-
trition Service. It was created to provide
nutritious food to low-income pregnant,
postpartum and breastfeeding women,
as well as infants and children up to 5.
According to a FAQ on the USDA
website, during the 2018 fiscal year,
about 6.87 million people received WIC
benefits, with more than half of that total
being children.
The USDA says participants receive
checks or vouchers from state-run pro-
grams to purchase specific foods eachmonth “designed to supplement their
diets with specific nutrients.” Partici-
pating grocery stores will place WIC la-
bels next to products to confirm they
are approved under the program.
Some foods available under the pro-
gram include infant cereal, iron-forti-
fied adult cereal, vitamin C-rich fruit or
vegetable juice, eggs, milk, cheese, pea-
nut butter, dried and canned beans/
peas, and canned fish. Each state has its
own set of guidelines for which foods
are eligible, and they typically are eligi-
ble only in certain quantities.
Several stores are adjusting their
hours or closing to deep clean locations
and restock empty shelves as the coro-
navirus crisis swells. Among them was
retail giant Walmart, which said it was
trimming hours at 24-hour stores.Women and children first: Grocery
shoppers should watch for WIC labels
Brett Molina
USA TODAY