The coronavirus pandemic has been nothing short of catastrophic, even beyond the loss of human life it caused. Numerous businesses had to shut down for an indefinite period, and entire industry sectors were put on the back burner until the threat eventually dies down. An unprecedented 30 million people in the U.S. filed for unemployment benefits since 2020 began. And let’s not mention all the travel restrictions that are crippling tourist-oriented economies and cutting countless people
off of making a living.
As expected, the world of stocks took a nosedive, too. For instance, you can look at the Nikkei, FTSE, and Dow Jones Industrial Average, which have all dipped big time since 31 December last year (though they’re recovering now). With how much of a stir the COVID-19 pandemic made — and is currently making — everywhere, it’s hard to tell what the consequences will be for the stock market.
Some stocks inevitably fell. If they’ll ever bounce back, and how long it will take them to do that is hard to say. The average recovery for a 5% to 10% stock market decline is around a month, but this situation is a little too volatile to say for certain.
All the same, experts are speculating about which stocks will rise once the lockdown is no longer in effect. Тheir conclusions boil down to a number of good picks for you to follow.
So, let’s list the top ones and talk about why they’ll likely be on the way up.
Nike
The lockdown forced most of us to stay put in our homes, meaning that we had little to no need for buying footwear. Nike stores across the world closed down to wait out the pandemic, so they’ve been hit pretty hard. But once the doors reopen, so to speak, its stocks will shoot up pretty strongly. It’s already opening up in China with solid success, operating at 80% capacity there.
Wendy’s
Even before the coronavirus trouble came to town, Wendy’s was well on the way to developing a digital platform for people to make orders over the Internet. And when lockdowns came knocking, Wendy’s was already prepared to make the most of it. This is why, even despite disappointing earnings, forecasts are optimistic for stock growth.
Snapchat
Unlike some companies and industries, Snapchat didn’t really seem to mind the lockdown situation all that much. It makes sense once you think about it: everyone stays home during the lockdown, including the under-thirty crowd that uses Snapchat. And they have nothing better to do than to play around on their phones and on social media all day.
Microsoft
Microsoft is poised to make it through the COVID-19 pandemic and come out strong in the long run, experts say. Most of that success will have to do with more productivity and different services provided. Azure, the company’s cloud platform, will probably act as the money raker for Microsoft, seeing that it already had a revenue increase of around 60%.
Peloton
Exercise is becoming more and more of a deprived luxury for people since gyms across the globe closed down. But at-home workouts are still an option, and many decided to commit to exercising at home with indoor bikes. Peloton, a company that makes said bikes, has seen an uptick in orders, and it got to the point where it had to make a backlog of deliveries because of high demand!
Walmart
There was little doubt that Walmart would do well through this entire pandemic. Seeing that it has a good presence in the ecommerce world, online shopping did a lot (and is still doing a lot) to keep it going strong. Even with a ton of competition in that field, Walmart still enjoyed good success, especially since so many people bought groceries in bulk from it to prepare for the coming lockdown.
Salesforce
Salesforce deals with providing cloud-based solutions, and it has played the market wonderfully so far. The range of services it provides is varied enough to ensure that it coasts through the lockdown and even the recession that will follow, with little trouble.
Activision Blizzard
Because everyone is cooped up in their homes during the lockdown, video games are a logical choice for many to kill all this new free time they have. And play games they did! For example, Steam saw its user base grow well over 20 million as the days in self-isolation passed. And Activision Blizzard will be enjoying a lot of growth from the increased number of people gaming, especially since it owns franchise giants such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.
Facebook is using the lockdown and the self-isolation boredom of the general public in a similar way to Snapchat. It even did a lot to copy Snapchat’s features and lure some of its employees into its flock. But since it’s such a huge player on the social media scene, it saw huge increases in video calls, messages, and voice calls. Not only that, but Facebook’s strong ad revenue is doing a lot to offset any dips in monetization in some countries.
Amazon
The ecommerce king Amazon seemed like it was almost made for situations like this one. People can have virtually anything they want shipped and delivered to them without interacting with anyone, which works amazingly well for the lockdown at hand. 2020 was a great year for this company thus far, with the growth being around 25%. And there will probably be even more ecommerce adoption if the lockdown keeps going.
