I have written quite a couple pieces over the years about the professional gloom-and-doom crowd, so this is hardly a new subject for me. It came up again recently when I was speaking with some new prospects who seemed permanently plugged into social media accounts predicting the next market crash, recession, currency crisis or financial Armageddon.
According to some of these feeds, the global economy has been collapsing continuously since 2008. We must have missed it. Perhaps the collapse is simply running behind schedule.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with being cautious. Markets are full of risks, and serious investors should spend plenty of time thinking about what could go wrong. The problem starts when pessimism becomes a business model.
Social media has made this particularly easy. Fear gets attention. Balanced analysis usually does not.
After decades around markets, fund managers, traders and investors, I have learned that successful investing is rarely about predicting every disaster. It is more about having the right portfolio, the right temperament and enough patience to stay invested through the inevitable periods of uncertainty.
Well, there will always be another crash or financial crisis. Yet markets continue to move forward. Perhaps the world is simply less dramatic than social media would have us believe.