Every month, Stoic partner Freddy Forger writes a short column in FiscAlert, the magazine with the smartest tips for money matters and therefore required reading for financial advisors and tax experts. Those who do not have a subscription to FiscAlert can read the column here. This month, Freddy Forger talks about our unpredictable times and how to deal with them as an investor.
The stock market has once again proven to be completely unpredictable. For example, everyone expected fireworks from Trump's inauguration. On the day Trump took office, the American S&P 500 opened just below 6,000 points. Two weeks later, it was at the same level. Not really very exciting.
The fireworks came from a completely unexpected angle: the introduction of DeepSeek. This is a Chinese AI model that can do just as much as the AI models of OpenAI, Google or Meta, but that was developed for only a fraction of the cost. With that, the American technology companies immediately lost their aura of invincibility and the NASDAQ plummeted by 3.1% on Monday 27 January. That is just the beginning, because from a geopolitical point of view, the fact that China is now just as capable of developing AI models as the US cannot possibly be underestimated.
The stock market history is full of these kinds of completely unpredictable events that have a huge impact. Just think of the credit crisis in 2008 or the corona crisis. That is precisely why I advise everyone to invest without vision: spread your money across all stocks worldwide and then sit on your hands. After all, the future is completely unpredictable, but in the long term the global economy always grows. And even if it were to stop doing so, your investments still protect you against a decline in purchasing power. Because if your stocks become less valuable due to economic contraction, everything else will also become cheaper. Your purchasing power is therefore always maintained.
