Markets have never lacked reasons to worry. There’s generally a long list of macro risks and challenges that need to be navigated. Yet the data on which investors succeed tells a clear story: cautious optimism has consistently outperformed pessimism.
Global investment sentiment gauges have rarely been this bullish, and history says that’s precisely when investors should pay closer attention.
Here’s what the data shows and what it means.
Most market commentaries explain major price moves after the fact with tidy causes that sound obvious only in hindsight. In my opinion, that’s not an intellectually honest approach in the current environment.
Global investment sentiment gauges have rarely been this bullish, and history says that’s precisely when investors should pay closer attention.
Here’s what the data shows and what it means.
Most market commentaries explain major price moves after the fact with tidy causes that sound obvious only in hindsight. In my opinion, that’s not an intellectually honest approach in the current environment.
How many times have you heard people talk down AI’s role in the future of humanity? We’ve all heard the feedback: ‘It’s unreliable’, ‘It will never replace humans for anything but low-value jobs,’ and ‘It’s all a flash in the pan.’ But what if these excuses are simply defensive responses because the truth is too earth-shattering to accept: the productivity promise of AI is already real.
If you know many gold bugs, and there are certainly more of them around these days, you may have observed that the number of them touting the arrival of ‘debasement trade’ is on the rise. However, this idea is far from being a new or short-term phenomenon, nor for gold bugs’ eyes only. It’s been a simmering issue for years, and is likely to matter for all investors for many years to come.
If you’re a news reader, you’re probably feeling like the world is engulfed in a crisis with no end date in sight. It sure feels like that as bad story after bad story is channelled toward news consumers around the world. Take your pick of which one that matters most. Trump’s latest offensive tweet, the housing shortage, the cost of living, the system, the list goes on.
You may have heard the term ‘rising money supply’ being bandied around as a key driver of global markets of late. It’s no exaggeration. If anything, most investors aren’t as aware of this market driver as they should be.
We’re only one month into the new year and investors are already being challenged to think beyond predictable narratives. Who knew the U.S. was going launch a military strike on Venezuela and capture the incumbent president?
Most of the world’s great investors are masters at identifying structural investment trends they can rely to drive their portfolio performance for decades rather than weeks. Whilst predicting the long term future is anything but easy, successfully identifying megatrends is likely to make your life as an investor a lot easier.
Ray Dalio has spent much of the past decade warning that investors are misreading reality. Markets, he argues, are telling one story in nominal terms and a very different one in real money terms. Asset prices may be rising, portfolios may look healthy, and indices may be hitting new highs, but measured against the true store of value, purchasing power, many investors are quietly going backwards.
The four most dangerous words in finance have always been it’s different this time. Financial history is littered with stories of incidents and eras when investors en masse genuinely believed it was different that time. Those were times when the crowd collectively gulped down the Kool-Aid and wanted seconds.
For more than a decade, it’s rarely been wrong to be long U.S. equities. The numbers are hard to argue with: the MSCI USA index has outperformed the MSCI World index by almost 50% over the past ten years. The longer term data is even more stark: U.S. stocks have risen from 30% of the MSCI World Index in the 1990s to 75% today. For all intents and purposes, U.S. stocks now dominate global equities.
It’s hardly a secret that the countries who win the technology war will dominate the global economy. The US economy is living proof that technology leadership is the route toward economic dominance. But they are not the only superpower with the ambition of technology-led global domination. China is also aiming for technology leadership in the same market segments, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, electric vehicles, and semiconductors.
You may have come across the unique breed of individual known as a day trader in your travels. Their numbers have been on the rise for some time now, so much so that they’re reshaping the very architecture of markets along with the notion of price discovery. What was once the province of nimble derivatives players is now having systemic ramifications across global equity markets.