What Will Matter Most in 2022

Anticipating the most impactful events of each coming year is a Wall Street tradition, and one we can hardly pass up either. Every year significant things happen in the world that meaningfully impact the markets, and hence, your portfolio, whether or not you choose to specifically address these potential disruptions. For example, some believe that 2022 could see China invade Taiwan or Russia start a pan-European war. We do not expect either scenario (although Russia may indeed invade Ukraine) and so we are not currently positioning our portfolio for either possibility. Even though we are “doing nothing” about these issues, we would call that an important decision in and of itself. We are aware of the potential scenarios, but do not share a belief in their likelihood. Others will take different views and may position their portfolios either to avoid what they believe will be bad outcomes, or even attempt to benefit from such outcomes. Those who have positioned to avoid bad outcomes sometimes enable markets to end up rallying on, for example, “bad” economic numbers that are actually “less bad” than they expected, and vice versa. Ultimately, the market is a forward-looking discounting machine.