After the Great Lockdown -New Business Realities and the Implications for Investors

The COVID-19 pandemic will have profound and lasting impacts on virtually every segment of society. The extent of that tumult is difficult to predict, but institutional investors need to focus on the ongoing disruptions and how the coronavirus will structurally alter the behavior of companies, consumers and governments. In our latest Megatrends piece, we draw on the insights of more than a dozen of PGIM's investment professionals from across our autonomous businesses to examine these new realities and discuss the impact and opportunities for long-term investors.

Even after the Great Lockdown is over, the crisis is likely to drive major structural and cyclical changes around the world. Economically, the pandemic-induced global recession could reach a magnitude not seen since World War II. Alongside the resulting fiscal and monetary responses, this will impact employment, inflation, savings, investments and macroprudential stability for many quarters ahead. Socially, with minorities and lower income households disproportionately affected, the coronavirus crisis will fuel the growing tensions from widening income and wealth inequality. Politically, the Great Lockdown will escalate the ongoing tussle between globalization and sovereignty as the need for a multilateral response to a pathogen that doesn’t respect national borders is countered by the need to close borders to protect our own. PGIM’s investment professionals and researchers have explored many of these critical topics over the course of 2020.

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