Back in December, Art Cashin, the longtime NYSE trader, predicted that the stock market would be higher in 2020 despite some volatile stretches in January, March and July.

Looks like he got that second part mostly right, anyway.

To be fair, nobody could have predicted the coronavirus pandemic and the impact it’s had on the economy and investors. And who knows: It’d take quite a stunning turnaround, but it’s still theoretically possible that equities will end the year in positive territory.

Cashin, however, isn’t exactly sticking by his call. When asked by CNBC whether he expects to see a “U-shaped” bounce, in which the recovery begins after a quarter or two of declines, or more of a longer and more difficult “L-shaped” journey back from the bottom.

“It looks like a longer recovery to me,” he told CNBC. “You can hear it in the president’s voice and presentation. You can hear it from Gov. Cuomo. They all want to reopen, but they are all hesitant for fear that there could be a secondary wave of contagion.”

So even when the country, and economy, do begin to open back up, Cashin expects it to take time.

“The question is, will the public be eager to rush back? Even people like you and me, who love to go out and socialize, it might be difficult to get that back any time soon,” he said. “Will they come back? Yes. Will they come flooding back the day after they say you can relax social distancing? No. So the chances of a bounce-back are there, [but] the chances of a rapid bounce-back are low.”

Cashin, head of floor trading for UBS, has worked at the New York Stock Exchange for more than 50 years, but, like so many other businesses around the country, the floor has been shut down.

“It’s a topsy-turvy few weeks. It’s hard to recognize,” he said. “Millions of people are now out of work, as we see with the jobless claims. The market has had great difficulty adjusting to it, because the market is used to historical recessions. This wasn’t caused by inflation, or asset bubbles, or bad investments, or anything else that has led to recessions in the past.”

Cashin has been rehabilitating after suffering injuries in a February car crash.

U.S. stocks finished the holiday-shortened week sharply higher Thursday, with the main indexes recovering about half of their losses that were racked up in late March during the height of fears about the impact of COVID-19.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.84% gained 285.80 points, or 1.2%, to close at 23,719.37, while the S&P 500 SPX, -1.15% jumped 39.84 points or 1.5% to end at 2,789.82. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.13% advanced 62.67 points to trade near 8,153.58, a 0.8% gain.

For the week, the Dow rose 12.67%, the S&P 500 notched a 12.1% gain for the abbreviated week, marking its best weekly gain since 1974, and the Nasdaq rose 10.59%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

From its recent March 23 low, the Dow is up 25.01%, the S&P 500 is up 22.27% from that point and the Nasdaq is up 18.20%, according to FactSet data.