With interest rates on the rise since early 2022, we have noticed an increasing level of fear, doubt, worry, and concern in the marketplace. Unfortunately for many investors, they are allowing themselves to become paralyzed when they should be preparing and positioning themselves for the great opportunities to come.
To help put things into perspective we’ve put together this page containing tips and tricks, tools, charts, and interviews with savvy investors to give you more insight on what is going on, help separate the facts from the noise, and most importantly highlight where the opportunity lies.
Perspective
The best way to put things into perspective is to zoom out. If we zoom out a little bit and and look at prime rate since 2009 (when rates hit new lows following the 2008 financial crisis), things look a little scary in this context:
If we zoom out further and look at the last 80+ years things all of sudden seem not-so-bad:
As an investor it is important to put things in perspective.
The last decade has seen historically low interest rates and we have grown accustom to cheap money. Since early 2020 when central banks slashed overnight rates to near zero we have seen borrowing at near all time lows for an extended period. After a couple years this starts to feel normal, but it’s not. Over the longer term a more normal prime rate has been 5%+ and we aren’t even back to that level yet (as of July 13, 2022).