Finish on the barrons round table tonight but at a safe distance, ben leveson, carl english and jack howe. Ben, first to you. Lets talk about whats happening in the market right now. In the beginning of the bear market, we had that crazy panic stage, lots of missed pricings. Now things seem to have settled down, investors maybe trying to find what the right prices are . They are. Or at least they, you know, theyre making bets that some kinds of companies are going to have a lot of trouble going ahead, and thats your traditional retailers, airlines, cruise companies. After rallying last week, theyve gotten hit very hard this week. And there are companies that have been winners including Biotech Companies who are working on treatments and vaccines for coronavirus. And theyve done very well. The one strange one is energy which has been among the losers but had a fantastic week because of reports that maybe we could see some production cuts to oil, and that would help drive the price back up from where its down around 20 right now. And maybe help them get back into the business of making money. Jackie what should investors jackie what should investors or be doing in this environment . Really the best thing you can do is just sit there with your portfolio. Theres a big drop, maybe you want to start nibbling. But the other thing is to look for companies that you think have gotten beaten up too much but you know are going to be able to pull through this no matter what. Theres lots of them out there. We could talk about them more later on. But it looks like the individual companies more than the major indexes are where the action really is. Especially as you go through into smaller and smaller sections of the stock market. Youre going to find that youre going to have more issues. What ive been looking at is dividend stocks. Dividend eats you up, you might have problems because right now a high dividend isnt necessarily a sign of anything except market stress. Because when a stock gets sold to off, that dividend is relatively higher, but that doesnt mean thats it. Thats right. Jack so you mentioned the cruise lines, the airlines, all these companies that have really been in the forefront of getting hammered for obvious reasons, they went down, they went up, they went down again. But you could almost say that about the whole market, right . Weve had these furious rally, the next day has been ugly and vice versa. Yeah. Thats been one of the best strategies right now especially this week. You know, you had some nice up days, 2 or 3 , theyve been followed by down days of 2 or 3 . Its just the way the market is now. Were really rangebound but in a very large range, and so you can expect to see more volatility where people are just trying to figure out where the value is. Theyre going to be doing this for a while especially because they dont really know, none of us really know how this is going to play out. What is the how is the disease itself going to play out, are we going to start seeing a peak in the number of cases, but also things like the efficacy of government programs. Theyre rolling these programs out for airlines and for publiclytraded companies but also for Small Businesses. I think were going to want to keep an eye to see if Small Business gets the cash it needs to keep going. Jack jack howe, youve done a deep dive into retail. We know retails just getting hammered, but theres some nuances within that group. Can you explain that . Yeah. I mean, the group is in a coma now, but i think investors want to think about how it will be reshaped after the virus is gone. Thats what i wrote about in my column and in this my podcast this week. First of all, we had way too many stores in america before the virus, and weve written about this before. We have 45 times the Square Footage selling space per person in america as the u. K. , germany, other peer nations. So we expected maybe ten years of accelerated store closings here even if Consumer Spending was strong. Now you have you have to be aware that Consumer Spending wont be strong. And thats another point. Every day that goes by on lockdown is a day where customers get more used to staying at home, shopping online and spending less. So we will get recovery. It might be a sharp recovery, but it might be a while before it takes us back to where we were before. And the last point i want to make is, you know, imagine if jcpenney and macys go away. Thats not his base case, he hopes that doesnt happen, but if they do, that puts 35 billion in Consumer Spending up for grabs. And if youre a longterm investor, you have to think about whos going to be in a position the grab it. The likely candidates are company like target, walmart, amazon, costco, companies that are doing well right now. And once stores are open again, start thinking about the apparel closeout chains like tjx. Theyre not the strongest online playerses, but theyll be worth a look too. Jack my add vice, use those gift cards now. One thing Retail Companies is doing is trying to keep their mows afloat until were back in employees afloat. Youve been thinking about why thats important to the market at large. Absolutely. Corporations that have been talking about this stakeholder capitalism for years now are really going to have to walk that talk. Its not just thinking about your shareholders, your employees, your suppliers, all of that. So what were finding is a number of companies have taken measures to try to insure that they can keep those payrolls going. You have comcast, marriott, theyre taking a cut in paw, starbucks paying their workers for 30 dayses even if they dont show up. You have the big banks saying theyre committed to keeping their work force in place. Now, this is a lot of feelgood stuff, but theres a business reason for this, because when we do come out of this which, you know, looking at the jobs data weve gotten this week, you know, its tough to picture that time but when we do come out of this, we want these strong, Viable Companies that are going to be the able to just soar back on the other end of it. The cost of bringing on new employees, training them, all of that, its a huge cost. And what Companies Want to be able to do is serve not just their employees, but also their customers, their business partners, you know, just to make sure that money is still able to flow. Its a tough time, a lot of companies are going to be taking a hit during this time, but its about the longterm outlook. 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Jack the government is stepping up with massive interventions to try to support the economy until we are all back at work, but how will the pandemic affect the economy in the long run . Joining me now, former imf chief economist ken rogoff, thank you for being here. How does this financial crisis stack up . I mean, its really too soon to know, but i think if you look at the dive in global output, not necessarily one countrys, but in global output, its probably going to be as big as any on record. Gdp only started being kept in the 1930s really, but going back to the great depression, how long its going to last is really the big question. Is this a pause for two or three months, is it going to be a pause that hits six out of the next eight months . We just dont know. So a lot depends on the pluck Health Response public Health Response, how we choose to respond and things about the virus we still dont understand. Jack so i would say there are basically three fronts on which we are fighting this war. Theres, obviously, the health front. Then theres the fiscal front, and theres the monetary front. I think the biggest action is by the fed, so can you briefly address what you think about the fed action so far, what else should be done . Well, i think the feds done a terrific job. Its been very aggressive doing things that it said it would never do like backing money market funds. I sat in on meetings where they said they werent going to back money market funds, but now theyre doing it because i think they have to. But, you know, that stops the panic. That stops the liquidity crisis. Finish but but if youre shutting down the economy long enough, and lets understand its still very openended up to the point where theres a vaccine thats widely available where this ends. Like, you know, where are we going to really normally go back to work, whats normal going to be, will this go to the Southern Hemisphere and then come back or just go to states that didnt shut down and come back . I really dont know. My guess is that we still have a long ways to go before the Public Health problem is sod. And the fed has solved. And the fed has stood there saying were going to solve the liquidity problem, but up to a point theres only so much that it can do. Jack sure. So thats where maybe fiscal stimulus comes in to try to keep everyone afloat. What are your thoughts there, are we spending too little, too much . Were definitely not spending too much. I mean, you know, even fiscal conservative, i regard myself as a centrist, but robert bare rows, a leading scholar on fiscal policy, and everyone advocates when you have a natural catastrophe or a war, thats when you want to use debt very haley. You want to be very heavily. You want to be in a position to do so. You dont want to have abused your ability to issue debt. We have a lot of capacity. I just think were at the beginning of this. I think therell be a further stimulus, simply because im not so optimistic the Health Problem will end requestingly. Theres going to be a lot of lost tax revenues here too. So thats still finish you know, i think our monetary and fiscal policys been heroic. Our public Health Response for the United States im not just looking at this administration, going back, our preparedness for a long time was woefully inadequate. And the good side of that is i think this could be worse, we could be facing an even worse virus, and we need to prepare not to mention bioterrorrism and such. And this is a really a wakeup call. So thats sort of the Silver Lining in this. Jack ken rogoff, thank you very much. We had a great q and a with hum on barrons. Com. Coming up, how the rate of infections will truth this market. The panel tackles that next. Motor . Nope. Not motor . 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The coronavirus now rapidly spreading trout the country throughout the country with new york being the epicenter of the crisis. We look at health, business and Economic Conditions there to try to anticipate what the rest of the country can expect. Bofa supervise joins the round table. I want to go to ben first just to explain this thesis about why were looking at new york and what we think that can tell us. Right. So new york is really the first to get hit, and it is the biggest, and right now it really is the epicenter of covid19 in the u. S. We have more cases, its spreading faster, and theres just looking at new york to see whats happening here, what works, what doesnt work, i think, is going to be very useful for other cities as they have to deal with this. And its also going to be a model for how city recover and maybe, just maybe, if things do start to get better here, its also going to be some positive news for the stock market. Jack are you looking at new york, are you looking at other places to get a sense of where were headed . You know, i think globally new cases is probably the best barometer of where we see a peak in terms of, you know, the markets bottoming process. So one of the things we noticed is that during the sars outbreak the hong kong and shanghai stock exchanges, the benchmarks were actually super correlated with just the acceleration or the desell ration in new cases. So i think that might be ad good barometer to watch. In terms of how to think about investing in this market, one of the things were noticing is that companies that are actually allocating a lot of resources, 19 are outperforming the market. So one of the things i thought was really interesting is companies that have happy, satisfied employees. For example, companies with strong glass door rankings are outperforming companies with weak glass door rankings, because that suggests that these employees are loyal and are going to stick with the company even through tougher times. Theres a lot of interesting dynamicses in this market right now, but i to think there are areas that one can buy. Jack yeah, that is really interesting, carlton was just discussing that. What are you looking for specifically in a company to say, hey, this is a company thats treating it stakeholders correctly, in the right way, and we think it will outperform in the future . Yeah. One of the things was not just employee satisfaction, but policies around leave, around childcare, just a general sense of a good culture at a company. We also found that a lot of companies that are donating, that are allocating, you know, kind of ourselves, significant Financial Resources to this problem in terms of loan forbearance, you know, Small Business loans, these are companies that are actually interestingly outperforming the market. The other thing that i find fascinating is that if you look at flows on our desk, weve seen Massive Equity etf outflows, but the one area where youve seen continued inflows throughout this bear market has been in esg types of etfs. So i think longer term investors are still thinking about these as good risk barometers. Its jack howe. Weve never seen jobless claims like were seeing rolling in now. Weve never seen a decline in gdp like were probably going to see in the current quarter, and yet the stock market, its off its highs, but all things considered, stocks are doing pretty well right now, and we dont yet know what the course of this virus is going to be, whether its going to come back in the fall. Why arent stocks doing worse right here . Do you think the recovery is already priced in at this point . You know, i think were going to be in a big trading range. I think we might go back to some of the prior lows weve seen. Heres the thing, i think the one signal that the market got that is positive is that we have a bed thats going to do literally whatever it takes a fed. I mean, we have a fed thats buying Investment Grade bonds. This is unprecedented behavior. So i think the idea that the fed is there to prop up the credit markets, to prop up liquidity, you know, cupid kind of backstop risk at some level, it suggests that the floor on the s p 500 might be higher than it was in 2008 when we didnt have that learning curve already established that, you know, liquidity matters during a downturn, and its stemming that really dramatic fall is critical. Jack unfortunately, weve got to leave it there. We have a lot more questions for you, i hope youll come back because this is, to say the least, a fastmoving table. Absolutely. Jack round table members give their best investment ideas for the coming week, so stay right there, please. I just love hitting the open road and telling people that Liberty Mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Today, john got dressed first date with sarah. John told his stitch fix stylist evan that tonight was a big deal. So his stylist did the hard work for him. Browsing hundreds of styles and sizes to find the perfect fitting shirt and blazer. So that tonight john could feel totally himself. At stitch fix we dont just see your size or your style. We see you. Let us find your perfect fit at stitchfix. Com. Before we get to jack and street wise, a correction. Last week we inadvertently put the wrong chart for zoom video communications, so were putting up the correct chart now. And a heck of a chart it is. Jack, so my family is trying to use this time to convince me, dad, to get a cat. The wife and kids have wanted one for a long time. We found out the shelter literally didnt have any. Yeah, good luck. I dont know if Goldman Sachs i upgraded dogs and cats a strong buy and no one told me, but im hearing more and more stories of shelters running out of pets. Im going to give one piece of advice to anyone who did get a pet for this, dont name your pet quarantineo. You do not want to be here a year from now, you go out on the front steps, you yell for it, and 14 dogs and 2 cats run into your house. Think about original names. Look at the pet care stock zts. Jack i just want to make it clear here, youre kind of a contrarian. Youre not suggesting people go out and sell dogs because theyre well priced right now. [laughter] its not a sellers market right now. Jack we always have one actionable idea from each of our panelists but, carlton, youve got two of them. You couldnt narrow it down. I just couldnt. The quarter just ended, your 401 k statement is going to be coming in the mail. If youre a longterm investor, just disregard it, stay the course. My second piece of advice, you know, were staying indoors, im looking for a stock that i like, Procter Gamble is looking interesting because the dividend yield is 2. 7 , it looks pretty strong. But im also thinking about the things that im doing. Im staying home longer, im cleaning my apartment long, i cant get enough mr. Clean magic erasers. People will be buying their products more and more. Jack theyre great, by the way, if you have kids. [laughter] ben, youre looking american tower. Were also on our cell phones a bit more these days. Thats right. This is, if you look at this company, its not like the ones that have got into trouble recently, the real estate ones that buy retail space and rent them out, office space and rent that. They build towers it is. They rent the tower space, and thats a really great business to be in right now. We have 5g coming, thats going to mean more powers. Right more towers. Right now people are using their cell phones, this is an interesting hooking stock at this point. Jack thank you, great ideas, thank you. Viewer, to read more, check out this weeks edition at barrons. Com. Follow us on twitter barrons on line. Stay safe, wash your hands. See you next week on barrons rounrd today, if youre having trouble go to the Small BusinessAssociation Website and they will show you a bank near you. Thank you for coming on. Lou dobbs now. Good evening everybody, tonight we will be hearing as we have each night this week from the president and the Coronavirus Task force about the latest efforts in the battle that is intensifying against the wuhan virus, the viral contagion originated definitively in china and the chinese virus it has now killed more than 6900 americans and infected at least 266,000 more americans. Worldwide cases have reached nearly 1. 1 million, more than 58000 people have been