In August 1979, BusinessWeek ran a cover story called “The Death of Equities.”1 The argument was that stocks were finished as a way for ordinary people to build wealth. Inflation had ruined them, and it was going to stay that way.
From August 1, 1979 through June 30, 2026, the S&P 500 Index returned 12.4% per year.2
I was listening to a podcast recently featuring a retired investment executive who spent his career collecting headlines like that one.2 He kept a file of confident predictions and then showed clients how they actually turned out. One of his favorites ran in 2004 and explained why the iPod could not save Apple.3 Apple is worth roughly $4.5 trillion today.2
You already know how to handle this everywhere else in your life. When a contractor tells you the roof has to be replaced this month, you get a second bid. When a salesman says the price is only good today, you go home and think about it. You slow down, because it is your money.
Most people drop that instinct the moment the subject turns to their investments. Financial news is the one sales pitch we take at face value.
Five things are worth remembering the next time a headline makes you want to do something.
1. Confidence is not knowledge.
The people predicting the market on television are guessing. Some are smart guesses from smart people. They are still guesses. Nobody has shown they can consistently call the direction of markets, and the ones who get it right once are usually wrong the next time. Even fund managers with long winning streaks tend to give the gains back. If a decade of being right does not prove skill at forecasting, a segment on a Tuesday afternoon does not either.
2. The headline has a job, and it is not helping you.
Financial media sells attention. A story that says “stay the course, this is normal” does not get clicks. A story that says a crash is coming does. That is not a conspiracy. It is a business model. Once you see the incentive, the noise gets much easier to filter.
3. You cannot pick the winners in advance.
The market is full of companies that looked finished and recovered, and companies that looked untouchable and collapsed. Apple in 2004 was a company plenty of intelligent people had written off.3 Buying individual stocks means being right about something the rest of the market has not figured out yet. That is a hard way to make a living, and most of us already have a job.
4. Diversification is what you do once you admit rule one.
If you knew which companies and sectors would lead over the next ten years, you would own only those. You don't. Neither do I. Owning a broad, globally diversified portfolio is how you make sure you own the winners without having to identify them ahead of time. It feels unsatisfying, because there is always something in your portfolio doing badly. That is the point. It means you are actually diversified.
5. Sitting still is a strategy.
Market timing usually fails for a reason that has nothing to do with intelligence. Getting out is the easy half. Getting back in is where people freeze, because the moment that finally feels safe is usually well after the recovery has happened. Returns tend to concentrate in a small number of days, and those days often come right after the worst ones. Miss a handful of them and years of patience get undone.
What to do instead
None of this means ignoring what is happening in the world. It means separating what is interesting from what should change your behavior. Almost nothing in the news should change your behavior.
The decisions that actually move the needle are the ones nobody writes headlines about. How much you save. What you pay in taxes this year and in retirement. Whether your investment mix matches the money you will need and when you will need it. How your accounts are titled and who inherits them. Whether the plan still fits the life you are trying to build.
Money is a tool to fund the life you want to live. Once your plan is built around that, the noise gets quieter, because you already know what you are doing and why.
If you have been reacting to headlines instead of following a plan, that is a fixable problem. Let's talk about what your plan should look like.
References
1. “The Death of Equities: How Inflation Is Destroying the Stock Market,” BusinessWeek, August 13, 1979. Cover story revisited in Peter Coy, “It’s Been 40 Years Since Our Cover Story Declared ‘The Death of Equities,’” Bloomberg, August 13, 2019. bloomberg.com
2. “5 Investing Rules You Won’t See in Financial Media,” The Informed Investor, Episode 53, August 21, 2026. Index return and Apple valuation figures as cited in the episode notes. open.spotify.com
3. “Why iPod Can’t Save Apple,” Money Magazine, April 2004. money.cnn.com
Disclosures
S&P data © 2026 S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a division of S&P Global. All rights reserved. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment; therefore, their performance does not reflect the expenses associated with the management of an actual portfolio.
The companies referenced are used for illustrative purposes only and should not be considered a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Diversification does not eliminate the risk of market loss. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.