2025: When Business Goes Up And The Stock Market Goes Down?

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Why invest in a "World ET"’? Because logic would dictate that “the world”, when it happens to be whole, does not pose isolated risks. Except that investing in the MSCI World means betting on 1,400 of the largest companies in mainly Western countries, geographically diversified in 23 countries and sectorally in 11 different areas of activity.

We are a long way from the "big picture" conceptual projection evoked by "the World".

The MCSI ACWI index already tracks more than twice as many stocks as the groups included in the MCSI World index. And this time we're talking about 50 countries, 23 developed and 27 emerging. I'd be curious to know, and above all, according to whom... We should rather speak of “new powers” and “declining countries”, as this would more accurately reflect the current situation of our century. Unfortunately, this would not be to our advantage as European countries.

The MSCI World is therefore mainly focused on very large Western capitalisations. The MSCI ACWI, on the other hand, includes many small and mid-caps, and does not leave many countries on the sidelines, where business is running like clockwork.

The key to investing your money is to look at what is real, not what other people think is real, and never to take account of what other people think is real.

When travelling to an unfamiliar city to buy a flat, if you let a local estate agent guide you through the different neighbourhoods, your host will show you the properties he has in his catalogue, at best, and at worst, those he can't sell or that no-one wants.

In the same situation, if you pay a guide to show you around the town and tell you everything you need to know about it, and then go out and look for properties for sale yourself, you will be able to get the best deal.

The same applies to financial investments: your interest should never be the counterparty of the person guiding you.  The unbiased ideas you form about the global economic situation must be the ones that lead you to the person or company who will assist you in making your investments, and not the other way around.

Before investing, take care to detail each of the gains that will be generated by your investment. For example, when you invest in a structured financial product through a wealth management advisor, always bear in mind that you are buying a financial product that has been developed by a structurer with whom you have no contact. In a logic similar to the example cited above, it's not because your wealth management advisor has a particular financial product in his catalog that you should direct your money to it; it is because you will have identified and understood the advantage provided by one product or another that you will have to choose the appropriate operator to give you access to it.

The financial planet that is taking shape suggests a sketch with even more ruthless contours than in the past. This means that, in the future, it will be more complex to make money on the assumption that the people solicited or the ecosystems will meet individual expectations. In the emerging countries we mentioned earlier, the stock market system is not as important as in the United States. In the United Arab Emirates, there are stock exchanges in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but they play a minor role. Business, in its most concrete dimension, is the key to wealth there - and while the stock market has the quality of being able to enrich savers, business only makes the bank accounts of entrepreneurs grow.

Just as the stock market makes it possible to undertake without having to do so, physical gold makes it possible to hold the foundation of monetary wealth without necessarily having to say so. While gold sales must be declared, the purchase of gold does not require any declaration whatsoever. Demand for gold from central banks and private individuals is growing all over the world. It would even appear that institutions in the Global South are sourcing gold through unconventional channels, in order to prevent Western countries from observing these purchases.

If in 2025 there is a marked slowdown in the growth of major US and European stocks, along with a cut in central bank interest rates, there is a good chance that the price of gold will soar.

This is the kind of argument that should convince people to use gold to store their wealth, and nothing else.

It's when interests diverge that the breeding ground for treachery is richest! Does your wealth management advisor have the same interests as you? Sometimes, perhaps; on the other hand, certainly...

In fact, it's more common for an asset manager to suggest that his clients invest in financial products, rather than in real estate, or... “even more absurd”, to hold on to their liquidity.

That the equity market has performed well in recent years is certain. That it would have been wiser to invest one's euros in them, rather than let them slumber and wither away, no doubt either - but sometimes, however, as silence knows how to be golden, money that sleeps is not necessarily money that dies. It's all a question of knowing what time the woolly stockings should be in bed, or out of it. In this game, it's a safe bet that an intermediary, potentially remunerated for not letting money stagnate, will recommend investing it, whatever the risk. Is Warren Buffet, who has been under scrutiny for almost an eternity, expecting the market to fall? The oracle at the head of Berkshire Hathaway is currently sitting on a mountain of cash amounting to $325 billion. Is it really cash? In the banking sense of the term, of course. Really liquidity available in accounts. Well, not exactly. Since this money is certainly dependent on the stock and bond markets, despite the fact that no positions have been taken directly by Buffet. In any case, Buffet's statement suggests a distrust of the market. It's certainly not just the fear of tax changes that has convinced Warren Buffet to set aside so much cash.

Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against wealth management advisers, and nothing against the stock market outlook for 2025 either. Be that as it may, we all know that predictions in this field are always trumpeted by those who know even less than the others, those who don't know... in reality, nobody knows, you have to suspect at best.

Trump is there, it is almost certain; if the Fed rates are to be drastically lowered, it will seem logical to make one's market among the values ​​gathered in the Russell 2000, otherwise not really; European stocks will suffer, the S&P's performance is likely to be disappointing, Goldman Sachs sees an ounce of gold at $3,000 for Christmas next year, bitcoin can only go up... All very well, these are the broad outlines - but when it comes to money, be careful not to become complacent about your reasoning because it is logical; firstly because logic is not king, and above all because it always depends on a distressing and sometimes unfair geometry.

Why, for example, should we strive to invest massively and in the long term in the same handful of US big caps, when we know that, in whatever configuration, this is no longer where growth will be captured? Generally, quite simply, because it fits in with a form of logic - perhaps that of reassurance.