Fidelity: Lessons from the first quarter of 2020

Now that the first quarter reporting period is largely over, it is time to draw lessons from the data published by companies and their impact on the longer-term outlook. Fidelity International experts examined the impact of COVID-19 on industries and regions.

The first thing that is important to mention is that income expectations have changed dramatically downward in the course of the reporting period as the coronavirus epidemic began to spread and investor sentiment collapsed. While it is unlikely that income expectations will change downwards, the corrections so far have already broken historical records, and the direction of the changes may change only in the second half of the year.