Corporate Governance in Down Cycle

Boardroom Governance Newsletter #25 | March 8, 2022.

Photo by Karollyne Hubert on Unsplash

I started this newsletter a few months after the start of the pandemic, in June of 2020. Two years later, the death toll from COVID-19 is 6 million, with almost 1 million deaths in the U.S. alone (The Economist estimates that the actual death toll is 19.9m people). But the worst part is that we are now transitioning from a pandemic to a war, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Not a good start of the decade.

So while there has been tremendous growth in capital markets in the last two years (see the Russell 3000 Index below), we may be entering a new down cycle. In public markets, the S&P 500 fell 3% yesterday, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 3.6% and is now 20% off its November high, entering a bear market, denoting a serious downturn.