Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of May 15, 2018

Article Excerpt

When I talk to serious, successful investors, few ask, “Do you think the central banks will raise rates two or three times by a quarter-point before the end of the year?” or “Do you think inflation will hit 3% in the next year?” They are more likely to ask things like, “What are the chances that interest rates and/or inflation will get back up to the peaks of the 1970s/1980s?” That is a much more important question.  A quarter-point change in interest rates or inflation is a fluctuation. A return to the peaks of the 1970s/1980s would be a disaster. No one can predict the future, of course. The easy way out on the question would be to say, “Oh no, that could never happen again.” But the productive way to address a question like this is to look at those earlier decades and to try to figure out what was special about them. It seems to me that in the years prior…