When grey clouds fill the skies ahead, consumers tighten up their purse string. And the current economic climate is no exception. Unfortunately for economic growth, the consumer is one of the most important factors. To date, we have seen unemployment soar around the world, and at the same time fiscal interventions has caused personal savings to soar.

“The investor who says, ‘This time is different,’ when in fact it’s virtually a repeat of an earlier situation, has uttered among the four most costly words in the annals of investing.” - John Templeton

It was over 10 years ago when the GFC ran havoc through global markets. A man made crisis crushed financial markets, economies, and lives. Today, we're faced with a very different crisis. Notwithstanding the crisis, the impact on peoples' financial lives is generally the same.

When we think about recessions, we generally don't think about a rise in personal income. But thanks to the support of governments all around the world, we might just be able to say, this time is different.

One paper that influenced market thinking in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic looked at the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions like social distancing and school closures during the Spanish flu (link here). The paper found that the US cities that implemented these measures tended to have better economic outcomes over the medium term. This offered historical support to the argument that there wasn’t such a big trade-off between economic activity and public health, because you needed to suppress the virus to enable consumers to be more confident and for businesses to operate as normal.

Sell in May and go away - so they saying goes. I wonder if there is a saying for July? Nonetheless, data is more important that sayings in my opinion. As the finance industry survives yet another 30 June, we're right into the month of July.