Market analysis with Herstal Jones

President & Founder of Jones and Associates

With brian morton, alicia rubin, and stormwatch 12 weather with chief meteorologist matt hoffman."

I'm joined by herstal jones, president and founder of jones and associates.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

You bet, brian, thanks so much for having me now, if you're lucky enough to have made it through our current situation with a job, where do you see potential for successes financially in the market or elsewhere?

Well, brian, i think for those still employed, uh, you know, this was obviously a good thing, is it means income.

It's still coming in regularly and.

In that case, this is definitely a good opportunity to start building a cash reserve or a rainy day fund.

If you will.

Um, this really provides a cushion for any unforeseen expenses that may come up or, or if you happen to lose your job, it can help with continuing to meet expenses while looking for work.

And even if you start slow, if you contribute something, each check, it will really build to help, uh, you know, to help you when issues do in fact arise.

Now, lastly, we'll say that if you are employed, it is important to continue to contribute to a retirement savings account, to keep your longterm goals on track.

Don't let something short term measure your longterm plan if you will.

So if you are necessarily not invested in the market, how does our current market situation either help you or in this case, possibly hurt you as we go forward.

Well, we all live in the environment, whether you're invested in the stock market or not.

We live in the coven environment, which is definitely a new world with many, many unknowns.

And so i think everyone, whether they're invested in the stock market or not is dealing with the new normal, if you will.

So if we see a downturn in global economic activity, how would we feel that as a non investor here in southern oregon?

Well, you know, the, the, the number 5% as has been kind of in the news lately, and i'll tell you of a 5% reduction in activity if sustained, um, that that would be a very large longterm negative for job growth, which would more likely be job contraction if you will, which, which would also have a very negative impact on spending now.

This would obviously hurt many small community based businesses that rely on people to spend at their restaurants or use their services, for example.

Uh, but now the recent rate reduction and economic growth was largely due to the necessary shutdown to reduce the spread of covid-19 obviously.

So.

I think the real question is going forward.

Can we start to regrow the economy while still keeping some level of containment of the virus spread?

What will you be looking for to find out if we're doing that successfully?

It's because there doesn't seem to be, there's a connection right now between the stock market and the number of cases increasing and, or the number of people unemployed.

So what clues are you going to be looking for?

Well, it's, you know, we are technically in a recession and it's always difficult to predict how long we'll be in a recession.

It really depends on the number of factors, you know, primarily how well the economy can recover from the rotavirus related shutdowns.

Uh, you know, and, and even if someone doesn't currently invest at a prolonged recession, as you were talking about earlier, it can really lead to businesses.

Delaying hiring or adding to layoffs, which can really affect a person's ability to stay employed or even find a new job if they're laid off.

Um, and, and also, you know, many workers are investing through workplace retirement plans like the 401k, and if they're eligible, but not investing, we would definitely recommend they look to start off.

If