Investors could be forgiven for having flashbacks this week to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008. Phrases like “turmoil among banks” and “regulators intervening” have a way of doing that for many of us. But current market data shows no expectation of repeating the stock market upheaval experienced in 2008 – or even 2020 for that matter. The VIX index, a widely referenced measure of US stock market volatility, closed at a little over 19 on March 29. This magnitude falls short of the conventional threshold, around 30, for elevated volatility expectations and far below levels reached during the GFC or the COVID-fueled market downturn in 2020.

While Philadelphia Phillies fans may yearn for aspects of 2008 to return, financial markets do not appear at this time to be expecting a repeat of that year’s tumult.

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On Friday, March 10, regulators took control of Silicon Valley Bank as a run on the bank unfolded. Two days later, regulators took control of a second lender, Signature Bank. With increasing anxiety, many investors are eyeing their portfolios for exposure to these and other regional banks.

Rather than rummaging through your portfolio looking for trouble when headlines make you anxious, turn instead to your investment plan. Hopefully, your plan is designed with your long-term goals in mind and is based on principles that you can stick with, given your personal risk tolerances. While every investor’s plan is a bit different, ignoring headlines and focusing on the following time-tested principles may help you avoid making shortsighted missteps.

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Consider everything investors have been through in recent years: a global pandemic, rapid inflation, war in Europe, and volatile stock and bond markets. It’s reasonable to feel uneasy in the face of so much uncertainty.

Now imagine it’s the end of 2019 and you know what you know now. You’re asked to predict market returns over the next three years. Will stocks be up 25%? Flat? Down 25%?

The market was up almost 25% from 2020 through 2022. That includes last year’s 19% decline. Too often, people look only at year-by-year returns and don’t look at the total history of returns, which can be very informative.

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One of the best things about markets is that they don’t have memories. They don’t remember what happened last week or last year. They don’t even remember what happened a minute ago. Prices change based on what’s happening right now and what people think will happen in the future.

People have memories. Markets don’t. And that’s a good thing.

So as you start 2023, take a lesson from the market. Don’t begin this new year bogged down by what happened last year. Give yourself the opportunity to start fresh.

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Investment opportunities exist all around the globe, but the randomness of global stock returns makes it exceedingly difficult to figure out which markets are likely to be outperformers. How should investors deal with this kind of uncertainty?

First, they should remember that it’s challenging, at best, to predict a country’s returns by looking at the past, as shown by the performance of global markets since 2001 (see Exhibit 1). In the past 20 years, annual returns in 22 developed markets varied widely from year to year. (Each color represents a different country, and each column is sorted top down, from the highest-performing country to the lowest.)

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