We are halfway through 2020 and it feels like we are at a crossroads. The first 6 months of 2020 have been a whirlwind, to say the least.

Strictly speaking of the stock market, we saw the S&P 500 decline by an unprecedented fall of -33.92% in the span of a few weeks quickly followed by a slingshot rebound in the market of 44.47%. At the halfway point of the year, the S&P 500 was down -4.84% as of the close on June 30th. With everything that has happened this year, being down -4.84% feels pretty good.

This post isn’t going to have much to do with personal finances at all. I tell my clients that financial planning is really planning for when life happens. Well, life happened to me in the past year. I was born on Father’s Day in 1985 so it’s always been a holiday I had a connection with, yet I never gave much thought to it and what Father’s Day actually meant until now (unfortunately, in my family, we didn’t pay much attention to “Father’s Day” in its own right-- even though my Dad was one of the best).

COVID-19 and the call to flatten the curve has wreaked absolute havoc on the United States economy. GDP shrank -4.8% in the 1st Quarter of 2020 and the 2nd Quarter is looking to have a large contraction with an even larger recovery in the 3rd Quarter. Total first-time unemployment claims since mid-March have grown to 36.5 million, which represents a 22.4% unemployment rate. The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high of 3,386.15 on February 19th and closed at a low of 2,237.40 nearly a month later on March 23rd. That means the S&P 500 fell by -33.92%. Since the end of WW2, over the past 75 years, there have only been four instances where the S&P 500 fell greater – assuming the worst is now over. This was, by all means, an epic drawdown in the market. However, had we not social distanced the economic repercussions would have been even worse.

That is the bad news.

Uncertainty and not having control over your situation are two of the biggest stressors in our lives at the moment. We aren’t sure what tomorrow holds for us economically and many people are at the whims of government officials on whether they can even go to work and earn a paycheck. One of my goals for my financial planning clients is to help them take more control over their financial life and create certainty for themselves. Not being beholden to a paycheck gives you so much freedom to do what you want and one of the best ways to do this is by starting a side business (aka side hustle). And with social distancing and shelter in place orders, there is a lot more free time to do so.