Some people loathe it, but I love New Year…
Why?
Because it’s a time for celebration and looking forward…
AND…
Because I can look back at some of the nuttier predictions from the previous year!
I like to chuckle at the market and media professionals who got it so wrong.
This New Year there’s plenty to laugh at, such as:
“The UK is not going to vote to leave the European Union.” - FT April 2016
“Hillary Clinton is still the odds-on favorite to win the presidency.” - Bloomberg November 2016
That’s the thing about predictions - they are just someone’s opinion, or their best guess: you can’t rely on them.
And yet, that’s exactly what fund managers spend their entire working life doing!
Guessing, speculating, betting… and relying on their predictions to time the market, pick stocks and gamble. With someone else’s money – potentially your money…
Their odds of success are pretty poor – 97.8% of actively managed funds fail to beat their index after fees and charges.
But hey, for those who insist on plotting their investment path with predictions, here’s our list of predictions - I guarantee they will all come true in 2017:
#1: Global stock markets will go up. Some of the time. And they will go down. Some of the time.
#2: There will definitely be unexpected news events. Some of these will have an effect on stock markets.
#3: Diversification will be a successful strategy for 2017 – just like it is every year.
#4: Market corrections will correct themselves.
#5: Miles of newsprint and thousands of webpages will be devoted to discussing interest rates and inflation.
#6: Some economies will grow. Others won’t.
#7: Passive investors will tend to enjoy better returns than their actively managed counterparts – if for no other reason than the fact they pay less in fees and charges.
If you prefer to make your financial decisions based on evidence, you’ve come to the right place, so do we!
