Often, hindsight can be a good teacher. Revisiting things away from the time and place they were said. Being able to look at them in another context. Pieces of information can be glued together; patterns can emerge, and the totality of a message becomes clear.
Looking back on the daily or weekly cycle of the news can bring some laughs in this respect. Usually, it happens when uncovering some old “treasure”. Moving into a new house and finding a stack of ancient newspapers. Maybe piling newspapers up in the shed to lay over garden beds, but you forget about them, only to uncover them years later.
Oxidisation may have turned the paper yellow, but the dated ink is still legible and a reminder of how quickly things change. Inflation’s impact over time as groceries, clothes, cars, and houses double or triple in price. Stories we were meant to worry about that fizzled out to nothing. Opinion pieces that look strange with the passing of time. News can age poorly.
In the future, going down this newspaper memory lane will be a lot harder to do. There will be less physical evidence of historic news. No old pages to turn, distracting you from your plans for hours. Newspapers are slowly disappearing. Walk down any street today as the sun is rising. You might see only one or two houses who’ve had a daily newspaper delivered.
While everything is now online, old stories can just as easily disappear. Websites get revamped and stories from as little as a decade ago are deleted or links are changed. Web pages eventually fall off Google and readers end up on “not found” pages. The internet isn’t exactly the great information archive we like to think, but in the short term it still remains reliable.
Even in the short term, stories age. Some worse than others. Financial stories have a very short use by date. Predictions, forecasts, and things we’re told to worry about are quickly swamped by more predictions, forecasts, and new things we’re told to worry about.
As we keep an eye on the financial media, we’ve noticed a very consistent tone from one of the few business columnists left at Nine Newspapers (being The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald), Stephen Bartholomeusz. It’s gotten to the point where we’ve asked ourselves, “gee, does this bloke ever write anything positive?”
These are the headlines from his market related columns over the last month, and while he likely doesn’t write the headlines, the tone of his stories are often as dark as they sound.
‘Goldilocks’ or nightmare? The big bet that could get very ugly: July 17, 2023
Russia's coup that wasn't has created a new risk for markets: June 27, 2023
The US will pay a heavy price for its damaging game of chicken: May 29, 2023
The deceptive calm on markets as ‘X date’ looms: May 22, 2023
China holds the cards as the world faces a dark economic future: May 17, 2023
What dangers are lurking in the shadows of the global financial system? May 15, 2023
US bank woes could help spark a global credit crunch: May 9, 2023
We are getting closer to global financial chaos: May 8, 2023
The king of banks sends an ominous warning about the future: May 2, 2023
Most relate to either the US debt ceiling, problems with US banks or interest rate rises. Issues that are either being dealt or solved with much less fuss than these columns imply.
With Bartholomeusz, there is an unrelenting focus on things potentially about to go wrong. Back in December, the big risk Stephen had on his agenda was China. Reopening after the government relented on previously strict Covid restrictions was going to go badly.
China’s COVID gamble could be a recipe for disaster: December 8, 2022
China’s reopening from COVID isn’t going well: December 20, 2022
Daily Chinese Covid cases did spike into the millions over December, but by January 2023 they fell into the hundreds of thousands. By the end of January new cases fell into the tens of thousands and continued to fall. Yes, Covid flared as expected, but quickly dropped away. Economic damage minimal. This prompted Stephen to look for a new Chinese risk.
How China’s reopening will shake up the global economy: January 23, 2023
Here the story suggested China having a successful reopening would be a risk because it would add to global inflation woes. A negative outcome would be negative, and a positive outcome would also be negative! But Bartholomeusz has been like this all year.
The US may now be closer than ever to defaulting on its debts: January 9, 2023
The game of chicken over the US debt ceiling has begun: January 19, 2023
It wouldn’t take much to derail the global economic recovery: February 1, 2023
In fact, go back across Bartholomeusz’s tenure at Nine, and economies and financial markets are forever on the precipice of something about to go wrong. Here’s another handful of headlines (out of hundreds of doomers) since 2017 that forecast potentially dire times:
Remember Grexit? It feels like 2012 again as ‘Quitaly’ roils markets: May 30, 2018
One word that created the GFC shockwave is on everyone’s lips again: September 11, 2018
Why the US midterms might rewrite sharemarket history: November 5, 2018
Why markets should be more nervous about what lies ahead: January 16, 2019
Markets brace for another potential flashpoint: April 29, 2019.
Jump forward to mid-December 2019 and a telling story was written.
Markets get some relief, but dangerous times lie ahead: December 17, 2019
This one agonised over global trade risks in 2020 and the danger they posed. As we found out, dangerous times did lay ahead, but it was something unexpected: Covid. Problems from global trade were set aside. Which shows the futility of forward-looking financial commentary. If the media can see it, the market can definitely see it, and those tasked with addressing it are likely on the case.
It’s why you can find headlines like this:
Too calm in the storm? Market reaction to Brexit turmoil may be premature: January 17, 2019
There’s a confusion when markets shrug their shoulders at looming issues that have been discussed for months, or even years. The reality is the market may have long ago digested these issues. It’s the pandemics, the earthquakes, the nuclear meltdowns, the wars, a potential alien invasion from outer space, that cause havoc. These things hit without too much warning and are likely to see a swift market reaction.
For someone reading this stuff day in, day out, it prompts a question: why would you ever be an investor? How could you have any confidence? And surely investors are licking their wounds given the years of economic and market terror Bartholomeusz has warned of since he began for Nine Newspapers in 2017?
Well, no. The Australian sharemarket (ASX 300) has returned over 7% per annum, and global markets (MSCI World ex Aust) have returned over 11% pa. We feel for anyone who has digested these columns and taken them to heart. It has probably cost someone a lot of money. It only encourages investors to jump out of their portfolio, or think they should time all these frightening events to be successful, when being patient is the real key to success.
One thing about news and opinion, it might not offer much value at the time of publication, but it can but so much more insightful years down the road. It might be worth hanging on to some of those old newspapers!
This represents general information only. Before making any financial or investment decisions, we recommend you consult a financial planner to take into account your personal investment objectives, financial situation and individual needs
With thanks to FYG Planners for this article