Quarterly Wealth and Investment Insight

How do you view the glass — half full or half empty? This question aptly captures the dual nature of sentiment today. On one hand, our standard of living is among the highest in history, fuelled by technological advances, improved quality of life, substantial and growing wealth and increased life expectancy.

When the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow) crossed a new high of 40,000 in May, it achieved a milestone that appeared implausible given recent popular sentiment. Just two years earlier, central banks were still on the path of aggressively hiking rates to curb inflation.

“Have we all just become economic snowflakes” This question emerged from a recent study analyzing the text of 200 million newspapers spanning almost two centuries. It concluded that both economic and non-economic sentiment have substantially declined over the past 50 years, despite far fewer economic setbacks

It has been 45 years since BusinessWeek declared the “Death of Equities,” warning that rampant inflation was “destroying the stock market” and “to regard the death of equities as a near-permanent condition.”1 These dramatic prognostications haven’t subsided over time, likely because negative news is more appealing. When one news website decided to report exclusively good news for a day, it lost two-thirds of its readership.2 Our brains are hardwired to react more strongly to negative information.

It has been said that millennials — those born from 1980 to 1994 — were the first generation worse off than their parents financially. Skyrocketing housing prices, a higher cost of education and a challenging economy, among others, were to blame. And while things didn’t look so great for the millennials a decade ago, recent studies suggest a different story.

“A new technology bids to transform the human cognitive process…redefine human knowledge, accelerate changes in the fabric of our reality and reorganize society.” These are the words of Henry Kissinger on the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential impact of ChatGPT — the AI chatbox that has taken the world by storm. Indeed, the evolution of AI is a reminder that change can come thick and fast.

Most people, investors or not, tend to base their current views on what is most recent in memory. In good times, we may expect them to continue for the foreseeable future; in bad times, we often underestimate our ability to move forward. We all tend to “drive by the rear-view mirror” to some extent, basing our decision making on what has just happened.

As we begin another year, may we continue to look forward with the hope that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. For almost two years, we’ve each had to endure adversity in our own ways. Yet, consider that this adversity may help us to advance. An article in the Wall Street Journal reminds us of the human condition to overcome hardship and progress.

The summer did not see much respite from the volatility that has gripped the financial markets. The bearish commentators continue to evoke fears that the aggressive moves by the central banks in raising interest rates will inevitably push economies into recession. It is therefore not surprising that many of us feel we are already in recession — the current narrative, alongside an increasing cost of living, the higher cost of borrowing and financial market declines, certainly hasn’t helped to support optimism.

Keeping expectations on an even keel has been a challenge when it comes to the financial markets. In 2022, we have experienced a rapid reversal in both direction and sentiment. With persistently high inflation, and with headwinds from the Ukraine war and the spring Covid shutdowns in China, the central banks have taken a more aggressive stance to try and temper inflation.

It has been said that “history is just one damned thing after another.” This may be particularly fitting today. For many of us, there has been little respite from the challenges of the past two years. Looking forward, it seems as though there is no shortage of new challenges. As we try to navigate the return to normal from the pandemic, we are now confronted with new uncertainties arising from the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

It has been said that “successful investing should be more like watching paint dry.” Yet, for many investors today, the speed of change in the markets may be conditioning us to think otherwise. In fact, a recent Reuters report suggests that investors on one U.S. discount brokerage platform are checking their portfolios at an alarming rate of seven times per day.1 Most would suggest that drying paint should not warrant that much attention.