Just a few months ago, we enjoyed a stock market that reached all-time highs on Feb. 19, 2020, when the S&P 500 index closed at 3,386.15.

Just six trading days later, we were in a correction (a decline of 10% or more).

What changed? Who can forget? An unexpected virus that was spreading fast and injecting great uncertainty into the financial markets. The markets do not like uncertainty.

While we did not know it at the time, a bear market (20% decline) was developing. By March 23, 2020, the S&P 500 index had fallen 34% to 2,237.40. Looking back from today, March 23 marked the current bottom. That’s the day the Federal Reserve announced asset purchases to ensure that financial markets would function properly.

Now (April 30), just 50 trading days after the peak, the S&P 500 is at 2,912.43, up 30% from March 23.

In the interim, we’ve seen some of the most volatile trading days in history.

Here are the worst and the best days so far this year.

Worst: 1) March 16 (down 12%), ranked the third worst in a list of 30. 2) March 12 (down 9.5%), ranked as the sixth worst decline. 3) March 9 (down 7.6%), the 19th worst.

Best: 1) March 24 (up 9.4%), ranked ninth best. 2) March 13 (up 9.3%), ranked 10th best. Then, another day in the top 30, April 6 (up 7%), which ranked 30th best.

To give you some perspective, since the 1920s, the worst one-day decline was Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987 (down 20.5%). The second worst was Oct. 28, 1929 (down 12.3%), and the third was March 16, 2020 (down 12%).

The month of March 2020 made records: down 12.5% for the month, the 19th worst in history, according to Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for CFRA. CFRA is one of the world’s largest independent research firms. Looking at the top 30 daily movers (up or down), March landed on the “worst” list three times and the “best” list twice.

April also made the record books. The month of April 2020 was the 12th best month, the strongest of any April since 1938.

Stovall explained: A positive performance in April is not surprising, however, since it is the best month of the year in terms of average price change since World War II and the second best in frequency of advance.

What’s next? “A continuation of the market’s climb is less certain, however, since May’s typical performance has been below average on a percentage change and frequency of advance,” said Stovall.

A bumpy ride may still be ahead. While it might be tempting to look to safety above all else in uncertain times, thinking long-term can benefit most investors. We don’t know yet if March 23 will be THE bottom for this coronavirus market. But we do know that long-term investors look to add to their portfolios when prices are lower.

Now is the time to prepare a buy list, if you haven’t done so already. Let me give you one resource now: The Outlook, published by CFRA Research. The Outlook is the oldest continuously published investment newsletter in the U.S. You can try it out for free here: https://advisor.marketscope.com/#/Outlook90.

We’ll talk more about other stock research tools, but I’d like to hear from you. What are your favorite sources for stock research? What questions do you have about investing during the Coronavirus market? Go to tinyurl.com/yaa399g7 to take a survey to let me know or write to me at readers@juliejason.com.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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Every now and then, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) proposes a law that states adopt. One such law allows you to title your house in transfer-on-death (TOD) form.

Called a TOD deed, this mechanism works somewhat like an IRA account’s beneficiary designation. That is, when you open an IRA account, you are provided a beneficiary designation form to fill out naming who you want to be your beneficiary in the event of your death.

The TOD deed essentially does the same thing. Say you want your house to go to your daughter Mary. Your deed would be titled: “John Jones, transfer-on-death, Mary Jones.”

In such a case, the house transfers to Mary, subject to mortgages and liens, with a lawyer’s help, but not as part of the assets that need to be probated by the court. Keep in mind that probate courts help decedents’ assets transfer to heirs; if an asset transfers through a TOD or other will substitute, the court does not need to effect the transfer.

TOD deeds are a creature of statute. That is, only those states that have TOD deed laws permit TOD deeds. My home state, Connecticut, does not have such a law just yet, but a proposed bill is currently under consideration. I personally would like to see it passed. Why should Connecticut be in the minority? The majority of states have TOD deed laws in place.

If you would like to check your state, I’ve posted a list on my website at juliejason.com/blog/tod-deed.

Some would say the goal of a TOD deed is to avoid probate; I would say that a TOD deed would make the transfer of the property more efficient. But, beware: An expensive estate plan can easily be thwarted if a TOD re-titling occurs without the knowledge of the lawyer who drafted your estate plan.

These are some of the benefits of TOD deeds, quoting the ULC (URPTDOA is the model TOD deed law):

“URPTDOA is an alternative to expensive estate planning for simple estates. People with a high net worth or a complex estate often use trusts and gifting strategies to transfer wealth outside of probate, but those strategies are prohibitively expensive for smaller estates ... URPTDOA fills the gap by providing a way for families, with the aid of an adviser, to easily transfer title to real property outside of probate.”

“URPTDOA allows owners to retain control of their property. ... With a TOD deed, the owner retains all rights in the property, including the right to change his or her mind and revoke the deed or sell the property. The TOD beneficiary has no interest until the owner’s death.

“URPTDOA has been proven effective in other states ... Today, more than half of the states allow transfers by means of a TOD deed. Despite some initial resistance in those states to the new procedure, over time the TOD titling process has been well received by recording officers, real estate attorneys, and the title insurance industry. TOD deeds are no longer novel, and the citizens of the remaining states should also benefit from the opportunity to transfer real property outside of probate simply and effectively.”

As Ben Orzeske, chief counsel at ULC, said: “States should adopt the model TOD deed act to provide a simple, inexpensive method of transferring real property to a beneficiary when the owner dies, without going to court for probate.”

I see that as progress at a time when we could all use a little help during this coronavirus pandemic.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers, Inc. of Stamford, Conn.) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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If you have been following the stock market, I’m sure you are aware that it's in bear territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18,592 on March 23, a 30%+ decline from its peak of 29,551 on Feb. 12. (The S&P 500 index peaked on Feb. 19.)

Since March 23, the Dow has made dramatic daily moves, ranging from a massive climb of 11.4% on March 24, one of the best on record since the 1920s, to declines of 4.1% (March 27) and 4.4% (April 1), followed by another big up day of 7.7% on April 6.

Looking back from today, the Dow has regained more than one-half of the decline that occurred following its peak of Feb. 12.

The question is, when we get to May or June and look back, what will we see in the rearview mirror?

Your guess is as good as mine. However, there is no doubt that the markets are moving -- fast -- and since March 23, the general direction is currently up.

So, what are your current plans? Are you in a position to start buying again? Should you?

Professional investors are watching for opportunities that a beaten-down market offers. Some with a penchant for risk are buying with conviction; others are buying small amounts over time or are avoiding the risk altogether.

If you are an individual investor or a 401(k) participant without professional guidance, and you are a buyer, there are resources available to help you find stocks for this market. Over the next few weeks, let’s review a few of them, so that you can be comfortable creating a list of stocks or mutual funds that you might want to start acquiring.

Many years ago, when I used to visit the Greenwich, Connecticut, library every Saturday, I read The Value Line Investment Survey. Now that survey is available in electronic form online, making it easy to search for both historical and forward-looking characteristics. The online version also has a wealth of free resources, including a stock screener that you can sample at no cost. Browse the research part of the website with me (research.valueline.com). Click on the Dow 30 tab to see an example of how Value Line presents information.

You’ll find a report for each Dow stock -- it’s well worth taking a few minutes to read a few. Some rankings you’ll see in the data table are unique to Value Line, such as “safety” and “financial strength.” They should be helpful to you in assessing whether any of these stocks are “good enough” to put on your watch list. Other terms are defined in the glossary, which is here: www.valueline.com/Glossary/Glossary.aspx.

Value Line’s “safety” ranking is based on price stability and financial strength. The price stability index measures “a relative ranking of the standard deviation of weekly percent changes in the price of a stock over the past five years.” The index is based on five years of data, which means the recent coronavirus market may not have a great effect on it.

The “financial strength” rating is an assessment of a company’s financial risk, including “balance sheet leverage, business risk, the level and direction of profits, cash flow, earned returns, cash, corporate size and stock price.”

These and other rankings are described in “The Value Line Ranking System,” which you can find online. Explore “tool guides” to become familiar with other resources. “How to Read a Value Line Report” will be most helpful.

If you would like to try the stock screener, let me get you started by sharing a recent conversation I had with Value Line’s director of research, Ian Gendler. I asked him how he would structure a screen for high-quality, dividend-paying stocks that could survive and thrive in the difficult economic period that is in our future.

If you are interested in his thoughts and how to structure such a screen, you can follow along here: tinyurl.com/y739d8mv. (You’ll find a free trial to the stock screener there.)

By the way, if this subject of stock and mutual fund research is of interest to you, I’d like to know. Please send me an email (readers@juliejason.com), mentioning the paper you read, what you do and whether you are a self-directed investor.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers, Inc. of Stamford, Conn.) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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