Markets fell in 2018 – but keep this in perspective

The start of a new financial year always provides a good opportunity to reflect on the previous year, take stock and plan ahead for the next. 2018 may have been a disappointing year for equities – many headlines were written about the global equity market falls, but were they really anything out of the ordinary?

Since 2009 (the bottom of the market during the Credit Crisis) global markets have delivered positive returns in eight out of the ten calendar years. The last negative year for equities was back in 2011, when the markets were down around 7%. Over the history we have available to us – on average – one in three years deliver negative returns. Investors have, of late, been extremely lucky.

Since 2008, in every single year, investors have suffered a fall from a previous market high and many of these falls were larger than 10%. However, even investing at the start of 2008 and suffering the 35% peak-to-trough fall in 2008, an equity investor would have turned £100 into £230, i.e. 8% compounded over 11 years, if they had been disciplined and patient (two known areas of human weakness!).

Human nature means we tend to have a strange view of what invested wealth represents and how we feel about it at any point in time. We tend to be happy as wealth – at least on paper – goes up to some value at a specific point in time and unhappy when we reach that value again, if it is achieved after a market correction.

Remember, the true meaning of wealth is having the appropriate level of assets that you require, when you require them, to meet your financial and lifestyle goals. In the interim, movements in value are noise, somewhat meaningless and part and parcel of investing. Remember too that the headline equity market numbers are unlikely to be your portfolio outcome, as most investors own some sort of a balance between bonds and equities.

As far as 2019 is concerned, no one who is honest knows what will happen in the markets. The global economy is still set to grow by 3.5% above inflation this year, according to the IMF, which is not that bad. Today market prices reflect the aggregate view of all investors based on the information to hand. If new information comes out tomorrow, prices will adjust to reflect the impact this has on company valuations. As the release of new information is – by definition – random, so too must price movements be random, at least in the short-term. Over the longer-term they reflect the real growth in earnings that companies deliver through their hard work, executing the delivery of their business strategies. In the longer-term, investing in the stock market is a game worth playing, at least with part of your portfolio, and it is important to keep things in perspective.