2 Winning Stocks to Buy in the Coronavirus Panic

COVID-19 is a black swan event, one of those unpredictable disasters that can ravage investor returns. The stock market is a forward-looking mechanism. We invest in companies we believe will do better in the future. COVID-19 creates a bearish scenario -- we now believe the vast majority of companies will do worse over the next few months.

The NCAA basketball tournament was just canceled. South by Southwest is not happening. St. Patrick's Day celebrations are off. Schools, restaurants, and gyms are all being indefinitely closed. Instructions from government officials and health experts to practice social distancing affects many consumer-facing businesses. And the worst part is that we still don't know how bad the COVID-19 outbreak will be.

If we have more surprising bad news -- an escalation in the number of people who catch the disease, or the number of people who die from it -- the market will continue to crash. One way I respond to this uncertainty is to own a couple of healthcare companies that are responding nimbly to the menace of COVID-19. While most of my portfolio is getting killed right now, these two stocks are thriving.

Source Fool.com