Blog: Bond Yields and Markets Before the "Before-Time"

A phrase from Star Trek: The Original Show became popular during the 2020 pandemic, referring to the time before COVID-19 as the “before-time.”  The phrase was lifted from a 1966 episode entitled “Miri.”  The story took place on a planet of children where the adults had been killed off during a pandemic.  The children referred to the time when there were adults living among them as the “before-time.” As an old Trek fan who as a teenager watched the original show in the 1960s, I was tickled that this phrase had returned. Investors evidently believe that we will be returning to the market before 2020, and that’s now the before-time. Well, what if that’s not the case?  What if we’re returning to the market environment prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, before the before-time? What would that look like?