Economy ≠ Markets

This morning’s Guardian front page...

Depressing or what and I’m not talking about those thunderstorms!?

But wait, deep, buried away on the “markets” page in the business section…

I’m not just picking on the Guardian here but doesn’t it sometimes seem that bad news sells?  

Why highlight this now?  

Well these pages brilliantly illustrate one of the key messages we are communicating in many of our planning meetings right now;  

It is not news to anyone (most certainly not the markets) that the global economy is going through a tough time right now and many of our clients are feeling the impact of this through work, business or in a myriad of other ways.  

The thing is though, counterintuitive as it may seem, bad news for the economy does not necessarily mean bad news for your investment portfolio (even though the economic pundits in the media might have us believe otherwise).

We last observed this whilst in the midst of the recession which followed the 2008 global financial crisis.  The two years which followed were amongst the best years in which to be an investor.

So if the weight of the economic bad news feels too much to bear in the coming months, remember it may just be that your investments are having a purple patch!