Today’s US stock market has, at least as I’m writing this at 11AM, a much different tone than yesterday’s.  Yes, it may be disappointing that there hasn’t been a bigger bounce so far back from yesterday’s mauling.  But at least there seems to me to be a lot more selectivity to what’s being bought and sold.  The losers appear to be companies directly affected by the consumer quarantine, the winners the least consumer-facing.

A second pattern continues, though, that trading is being driven, among the losers at least, by reaction to media headlines rather than investor forethought.

For me, one of the more puzzling aspects of the US market throughout my professional career has been the fact that virtually no institutional money managers ever beat their benchmark index.  If, ex broker fees and commissions, investing is a zero sum game, there must be winners (who don’t disclose their results) to offset the highly visible losers.  It could be that the fees and commissions are the reason, but the extent of the professional losses seems to me to be too high.  This leaves private individuals.

I mention this because the reports I’ve read indicate individuals are buying as institutions are forced to sell to meet investor withdrawals.