Come on, I have written quite a number of pieces over the years on why some people (professional gloom and doomers) often sound permanently bearish, or at least cautiously pessimistic. The topic came up again recently during a conversation with a few prospects who seemed permanently plugged into social media accounts forecasting financial Armageddon every other day.
During the discussion, I was shown several video clips by various “experts” confidently predicting another major market meltdown, recession, currency crisis, or some variation of the end of modern finance as we know it. According to some of these feeds, the global economy has apparently been collapsing continuously since 2008, with short breaks in between for coffee or tea.
To be fair, markets are becoming increasingly dynamic and there are always risks beneath the surface. Serious investors are paid to worry. That is part of the job. Social media has now turned fear into a business model of its own. Balanced analysis rarely trends. Calm people do not usually go viral.
One thing I have learned from spending decades around global markets, fund managers, traders, and investors is that many sophisticated players are naturally wired to focus on risks first. Part of that comes with the job. If you manage large pools of capital, surviving the storm is often more important than chasing every rainbow.
The problem today is that social media algorithms have discovered that fear travels much faster than balanced analysis. As I often tell clients and partners, successful investing is usually less about predicting every disaster and more about surviving long enough, emotionally and financially, to benefit from human progress over time. Otherwise, we would all still be hiding in caves waiting for the next mother of all crashes.