In these times of knowing virtually NOTHING for sure… there are a handful of possible “What Comes Next” topics that can be covered:
- What Comes Immediately Next with Coronavirus Closures & Re-openings?
- What Comes Next in the World Markets?
- What Comes Next in the US & World Economy?
- What Comes Next Further Down the Line in General?
- …When do we all get to go back to work, sports and Life?
In the interest of maintaining a positive while realistic attitude, there was an encouraging news item on Thursday of this week that coincided with a decent-sized (one-day) market rally: McDonald’s (hamburgers) has issued a directive to its restaurant owners outlining the changes needed to be made in order to …. REOPEN their “dining rooms”. (Note, I had not previously thought of McDonald’s as having “dining rooms”, but I’ll take it if that means that dining outside the home and being able to people-watch comes back into our lives).
It could be concluded that McDonald’s restaurants opening is an indication of our world re-opening – with the proper amount of safety and caution.
The McDonald’s directive is a 59-page “dine-in reopening guide” with several dozen changes needed to ease coronavirus concerns. Changes included how often the rest rooms and order kiosks are cleaned in addition to outfitting order-takers and workers with face shields. The dozens of additional outlined changes will be expensive and invasive to workers and customers alike. And progress will be made at the same time.
So it seems that “What Comes Next” means that nearly everyone in the civilized world will need to adjust to somewhat massive change.
Let’s simply digest that fact for now: there will be immediate, serious change to the way we literally wake up, work, and conduct our lives. Nearly every aspect of our lives will change in the immediate future…with appropriate adjustments made down the line.
This concept of profound change alone is the introduction to “What Comes Next”. The fluctuation in markets, economy, stocks, bonds, and interest rates will be the easy part.