Note: This article was first published in The Business Times on 29 July 2020. It may feel like a lifetime has passed, but it’s only been around seven months since COVID-19 emerged and upended the lives of people all over the world. Given the short span of time, I don’t think there can be many definitive investing lessons that we can currently draw from the crisis.  But I do think there are already key lessons we can learn from. At the same time, we should be wary of learning the wrong lessons.

A mistaken notion

As of 21 July 2020, the S&P 500 index – a broad representation for US stocks – is flat year-to-date. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq – a tech-heavy index of US-listed companies – is up by more than 17% in the same period. Even more impressive is the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index’s 55.5% year-to-date gain. The BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index is created by venture capital firm...