28 Feb 2025

Thinking: No News is Good News

Amidst the dreary weather and cold of winter, it surely doesn’t help that everywhere in the world, media outlets tell us bad news every day. As human beings, we’re wired to avoid danger, and to take in alarm more quickly than a sense of ease. Unfortunately, much of what’s in our media is negative, because we’re more likely to click on it, or buy it. But constant exposure can make it hard not to form a very pessimistic perspective of the world around you. A view which may not in fact be supported by reality.

From year to year, life may be slightly better or slightly worse. And there will always be new challenges to us as individuals and societies – whether they be the digitalisation of human life, the warming of our planet, the aging profile of populations around the world, global pandemics, war and strife, the list goes on. But over the course of decades, let alone centuries, life is improving steadily, and often far more rapidly than we readily acknowledge. This is reflected in life expectancy and infant mortality statistics, in literacy rates, in the growth of our access to knowledge and learning (even if we now need a very refined filter for what is guff and what’s helpful), and in the substantial overall reductions in the numbers of people killed and wounded globally in armed conflicts and violent crime.

But, as an antidote to the doom and gloom, a few things can really help.

First, consider following question: When, in all of human history, if you have no control over where in society you would emerge, you would wish to be born? The truth is, with modern healthcare, public infrastructure such as running water, the almost total abolition of slavery (which until the 19^th century was common practice in the vast majority of cultures across the world) – your chances of a life that isn’t nasty, brutish and short (thanks Hobbes), are probably at their greatest now.

Second, for a longer form exploration of how rapidly our world has improved, and continues to improve at the scale of humanity as a whole, Hans Rosling’s work ‘Factfulness’ is still a brilliant antidote to the doom-mongering. It is packed full of statistics and illustrations that are easily accessible and make it clear how things keep getting better – and the opportunities this presents for those of an economic mind, as the middle class grows around the world.

Third, I often suggest to friends and clients too, that there are ways to balance out the negativity with news of a more positive sort (without being Pollyanna about things either). One of these is a free weekly email from ‘Fix the News’ that gives you an update on all the positive things happening around the world for the future of humanity and the happiness of people and the natural world in many different countries.

In and of itself, our receptiveness to alarm is just a quirk of human behaviour that served our hunter-gatherer ancestors well. It is often replicated in the psychology of investing, where we humans are more likely to remember clearly a loss in the value of our investment and the shock we felt when this happened, than to remember all the times when the investment grew steadily. We can end up devoting lots of energy to the one part of our investments that drops or struggles, ignoring the happier news. This is known as loss-aversion: making an investor like the person who experiences an unfortunate relationship and decides never to open themselves up again. This sort of cognitive bias is one of numerous reasons why humans are not particularly well built psychologically for investing.

Here in the UK the ‘fear’ problem may be particularly acute (perhaps not entirely surprising given the tendency of our Fourth Estate to tear people and our country down): recent research has shown that UK retail investment in equities (outside of pensions) is the lowest in the G7, and far behind the much higher investment rates of Americans – with British investors tending to be much more heavily weighted outside of their pensions toward property (50%) and cash (15%). As a financial planner, sometimes my job is to help you to simply ignore the media’s negativity bias as well as our own cognitive biases, and to pursue a brighter future.

Often one of the greatest benefits of working with me is having a sounding board or trusted counsel to help you consider what the correct strategic response may be to inevitable changes in investment conditions and market events. The histories of various markets can only give us some clues as to what to anticipate in the future (it isn’t predictive any more than any other history can be). But a large part of success, in life and in investing, is how we respond to events as they unfold. So, cheer up, grab a slice of historic perspective on how far humanity has come and how much opportunity lies in front of you, and to quote Desiderata, “enjoy your achievements as well as your plans”.

If you would like to discuss your investment strategy and how this fits with the market conditions we have today – please book a free initial chat with Duncan:

https://calendly.com/duncan-bw-hoebridgewealth/30min

The content of this article is for information purposes only and does not constitute advice. It is not an offer to purchase or sell any particular asset and it does not contain all the information which an investor may require in order to make an investment decision. Please seek professional advice before entering into any financial arrangement.

Article updated Sep 2025