This week, I've been mixing business and pleasure.
I've been working – keeping an eye on our recommended companies, and doing media appearances on TV and radio, mostly.
And I'm on holiday – spending a week on the NSW South Coast with my extended family.
So, while I had to travel most days for the TV gigs, they were early morning ones, so I could get up before everyone woke up and be back soon after brekky. And I had to be prepared – and in phone range – for the radio crosses. But that was pretty manageable with a little planning.
I'm lucky I can do both, of course. I don't need to be on a work site or in an office.
It's a really nice way to end what's been a tough year for investors.
I was asked on The Today Show this morning, to summarise 2022 on the stock market.
As I write this, the ASX has fallen around 8% over the past 12 months.
Add back dividends, and we're down around 4% or so.
Not great, but not terrible.
Stock markets fall around one year in three, on average. So it's more normal than it feels at the time.
A loss of 4% really isn't so bad.
Of course, different sectors fared very differently.
Energy companies, for example, gained 33%, as a group.
IT businesses fell by around the same amount.
Non-essential retail (the boffins call it 'Consumer Discretionary') fell about 24%.
Utilities rose by a similar proportion.
Every other sector, bar 'Materials' (mining), was in negative territory.
Such, I guess, is life on the ASX, some years.
I tend to avoid resources businesses. I invest predominantly in growth companies, and companies that are in the consumer discretionary category.
So, 2022 wasn't kind to my portfolio.
Which… sucks. At least in the moment.
But I'm in it for the long haul.
I've written before that I think we'll look back on late 2022 and early 2023 as good times to be buying shares of beaten down companies, overall.
Time will tell, of course.
But that's not really what I wanted to write about, today.
Maybe it's having a little time and space away from the daily grind.
Maybe it's feeling a little reflective, as we round out the year.
But at the end of 2022, I'm feeling pretty positive.
Not because I've had a good year, financially.
Or because I have some special insight about what 2023 will bring.
(I do think there's a decent chance that it'll be a good year for investors, by the way. But that's not a prediction, and I could be 100% wrong.)
I'm feeling pretty positive because I think our best days are ahead of us.
As a stock market, yes.
But also as a country.
And as a global society.
Why?
This one is easy.
Because, historically speaking, that's always been true.
We are wealthier than we've ever been.
We're healthier than we've ever been.
We have technology that our forebears could not have imagined.
The poor are less poor than ever.
Our scientists are better informed than at any time in our history.
Fewer people die in conflicts.
Fewer people die in car accidents.
Fewer kids die in infancy, and fewer mothers die in childbirth.
I could go on.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's vice-chair at Berkshire Hathaway (I own shares) and long time mate, said, in his characteristically straight-shooting (and somewhat impolitic) way, recently that we should stop complaining:
"People are less happy about the state of affairs than they were when things were way tougher…"
"It's weird for somebody my age, because I was in the middle of the Great Depression when the hardship was unbelievable."
"Life was pretty brutal, short, limited and what have you. [There was] no printing press, no air conditioning, no modern medicine."
"I can't change the fact that a lot of people are very unhappy and feel very abused after everything's improved by about 600%, because there's still somebody else who has more."
(The quotes are taken from this CNBC article.)
Now, I think we should keep trying to make things better. And I don't think Munger was suggesting there were no problems that need solving.
There are.
But it's really important to remember how much better things are, even for the least fortunate, locally and globally.
Now, at this point, some of you are getting up a head of steam.
"But what about…" you're thinking.
Remember, though, I'm agreeing with you.
It can be true that we've never had it better, AND some things need improving, at the same time.
And I'm the last person who'd say those advocating for continuous improvement should stop. I think they should keep going… and going their hardest.
I just think it's important to keep perspective at the same time.
Things are bloody amazing AND they can be made better.
Both things can be – I think, are – true at the same time.
Australia doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.
And nor should we – it's an American (and Canadian) custom, based on their own histories.
But we should take time to be thankful that we live in this age.
We're likely to live longer.
To be healthier, and wealthier.
To have more, and to have fewer unmet needs.
I am incredibly grateful to have been born here. And to live here.
At this time in history.
I'm going to keep advocating, in my small way, for ongoing improvements.
If you've read my articles (and my tweets), you'll know I'm passionate about a lot of things we should be doing better, both as a finance industry and as a society.
But I'm going to keep all of these in perspective.
And I'm going to be thankful for the life and the opportunities we have in the third decade of this second millennium of the modern age.
As the clock strikes midnight tomorrow (and assuming I'm still awake), I'll be belting out Auld Lang Syne.
Because remembering the 'good old days' is important.
But when we look back in 10, 20 and 30 years, 2022 and 2023 will be the good old days.
Between now and then, there'll be problems. And setbacks. And challenges.
Of course there will.
But despite those, we'll marvel at how much things have improved, overall, since.
We shouldn't miss the forest for the trees.
Me?
I'm going to keep investing, because democratic capitalism's best days are ahead.
But I'm also going to try to keep living my best life.
Because these are the good old days.
Don't miss out.
Fool on!
