My last post was on December 23rd. I missed two weeks of writing on my blog. I could blame my travel, days off & holidays as the reason for not writing. The reality is that it is tough for me to maintain the habit, even tougher when I am out of my weekly routine. Now back at it!
As I started the year, I went through my 2018 goals and set new ones for the year to come. For me it’s an important exercise to balance the professional & personal objectives for the short term (1yr) and longer term horizons. Bill gates shared his new year´s recap & goals and it´s just impressive how much he does, maybe its all that time he separates to think.
I am thankful for a great 2018 and look forward to a better 2019!
One of the posts that I most enjoyed early in the year was Fred Wilson´s predictions for 2019. Although I don’t agree on all of them, it’s very respectable to put forecasts out there in the public.
I do agree with Fred in that 2019 will probably be quite volatile for the world, both on economic and political fronts.
Why I think this is a year to be cautious:
Central bank rate hikes, reduced liquidity from quantitative tightening, China-US trade tensions, Trump-Putin-Xi relationship cocktail, rise of populism-socialism around the globe, slowing Chinese economy and over levered governments & corporations to be affected by a liquidity crunch.
It could turn out that Oct – Dec was just a correction and the global markets will continue their upward trajectory. But it would be prudent to be conservative, hope for the best but prepare for the worst considering the moving parts in the air.
However, I continue to be very optimistic about the future as the chart below shows. The global economic machine has been working for hundreds of years. It will continue to work and provide wealth / improved quality of living for years to come.
Finally, my home country of Venezuela has been in the news as a critical date to appoint the new president has passed. Nicolas Maduro took office for his second term this week, not without strong resistance from Juan Guaidó, the national assembly president. Again, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst… I expect it will be another difficult year for the country.
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