How bad will recession be and what will recovery look like?

The economic destruction of the coronavirus crash was laid bare in reports from the Office of Budget Responsibility and IMF this week. Lockdown has already wiped £50billion off the UK economy and is costing the nation £2billion a day, said the OBR. Meanwhile, the IMF warned the global economy would take the biggest hit since the Great Depression in the 1930s, with advanced economies shrinking 6.1% this year and developing countries by 1%.  But although the OBR forecast an astonishing 35% slump in UK output in the second quarter of this year - with a three-month lockdown - the other side of its chart showed a substantial bounce-back. What will we need to do for that recovery to happen – and what will it look like? On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert and Georgie Frost look at the reports on the economic impact of Covid-19 and at the potential bounce back, along with which sectors and businesses could seize the day when it comes. They also discuss the big tech firms that have benefitted from lockdowns and working from home around the world.  The lofty valuations of these companies marked the top of the previous stock market boom, but their shares have fared better than most in the coronavirus crash. Can the FAANG stocks (and Tesla) pick up where they left off? And finally, investors are told to think long-term with the minimum investment period traditionally cited as five years. But have the events of the past 21 years on the stock market shown that now we need to think in decades instead?  

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