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Optimism
It's no secret that optimism and positive thinking have a positive effect on your health and character traits. Easier said than done. But one thing is clear: problems and challenges are not solved by complaining. Progress and development come from overcoming, and overcoming requires a proactive and positive attitude.
‘There is no alternative to optimism.’
Karl Popper (Austrian-British philosopher, 1902 -1994)
The situation is similar with investments. These are by definition forward-looking and because the future is uncertain, there is room for different assessments of the future. Bad news in particular quickly paints a gloomy picture of future economic prospects - with the result that investors become anxious and sell their shares, usually when the news is particularly bad. The ever-increasing flood of information from all parts of the world is an additional challenge for investors. There is always bad news, so to speak.
What is often forgotten with all the supposed problems is that humanity has developed at an incredible speed in its time on this earth. It is in the nature of things that this positive development is not linear, but undulating: progress and development often occur when problems and challenges are at their greatest. Accordingly, I don't want to advocate blind optimism, but I would like to argue in favour of an optimistic background noise. The coronavirus crisis has shown that solutions can be found within a very short space of time, even in the face of major challenges. Buying shares in companies in the form of sensible equity investments is a bet that progress and further development will also be possible in the future. Shares offer the highest long-term returns because they are the only form of investment that enables active participation in economic value creation in the form of equity (see chart).
What is often forgotten with all the supposed problems is that humanity has developed at an incredible speed in its time on this earth. It is in the nature of things that this positive development is not linear, but undulating: progress and development often occur when problems and challenges are at their greatest. Accordingly, I don't want to advocate blind optimism, but I would like to argue in favour of an optimistic background noise. The coronavirus crisis has shown that solutions can be found within a very short space of time, even in the face of major challenges. Buying shares in companies in the form of sensible equity investments is a bet that progress and further development will also be possible in the future. Shares offer the highest long-term returns because they are the only form of investment that enables active participation in economic value creation in the form of equity (see chart).
Source: Taunus Trust, 2024
