Already a subscriber?On the eve of the 2016 US election, Donald Trump was given next to no chance of winning the presidency, which was precisely how every financial markets commentator and prognosticator wanted it.
Both Wall Street and the financial Twittersphere were forecasting that a Trump presidency would be disastrous for the sharemarket because of his threats of a trade war, his promises to make wholesale changes to regulations and his utter disregard for how politics had normally been done. The Bespoke Investment Group analysed sharemarket returns under all the US presidents going back to the start of the twentieth century and found the median annualised return under both Democrats and Republicans was the same, at 6.6 per cent each.Letting your political beliefs get in the way of a long-term investment strategy can also be very costly.
Despite grim warnings for global trade when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the MSCI World Index has risen more than 30 per cent since, including navigating the headwinds of higher interest rates during 2022.started – right on the doorstep of the region that accounts for the bulk of global oil production – the MSCI World Index is up 27 per cent.