Year End Comment

What a wild ride. In 2022 we experienced:

• The longest downturn in the market since the Great Recession in 2008

• 1970’s style inflation of 9%

• Rapidly rising mortgage and interest rates

• Bond prices crashing (which was the largest decline ever)

• Federal Reserve doing their best to crash the economy 

• Russia starting a war

• Record gas prices

• Lockdowns in China

• A housing recession

• Numerous Ponzi schemes (specifically in cryptocurrencies)

And yet, due to the strength and resiliency of our free market, and our adherence to the principals of low-cost, widely-diversified, and high-quality investments, our typical 80% stock/20% bond portfolios are only down 12% from the peak on January 2, 2022.

Next year may be even more of a wild ride, especially since the expected 2023 recession is the most widely anticipated recession in modern history. This is shown in today’s Chart of the Day which is a survey of professional economists on the probability of a recession in the next 12-months. 

As we sign off until next year, and all the year-to-date figures are noted in the history books and then reset to zero, I want to thank everyone for reading our Charts of the Day. Hopefully you enjoy them as much as we like making them and they are providing new insights to investing and our world.

Our motto is, “The most successful investor, is the one who understands both what they are invested in and why." We hope to continue this in our journey while facing a new year with a new set of challenges. All of which we will overcome together.

Happy New Year!