MONEY THOUGHTS: Things can, and will, get better

THERE is a cyclicality to life which gives us reason to hope for better days ahead.

I will explain.

For most of us, there are countless specifics concerning our work or business.

An important class of such specifics is time-based. One such easy-to-grasp division would be three recent periods we might refer to as BC, DC and AC.

My abbreviations mean:

BC: Before Covid

DC: During Covid

AC: After Covid

Right now, in our AC period of late 2026, we face tumultuous times triggered by the damaging geopolitical missteps of sub-standard heads of state.

I'm often enraged by the chaos caused by world leaders with more power than empathy, decency and common sense.

Growing numbers of us find it depressing to peer from our vantage point of "today" out into a grim "tomorrow".

But whenever we find ourselves spiralling downward into a deep funk, there are advantages to casting our collective mind's eye back to the generally good BC, bad DC, and mixed recent AC years.

Doing so can help us regain a much-needed perspective on how bad the recent past was and thus, identify silver linings trimming the ominous clouds gathering before us.

Some such dark clouds are the existential threat of the Iran War spreading beyond the Middle East; the impending Godzilla El Nino that will soon trigger droughts and ensuing famine in certain regions; the damage to most national economies caused by high fuel prices stemming from restrictions on fuel flows through the Strait of Hormuz; sporadic youth violence in developed Europe, including France, Italy and even mighty Germany; the ecological degradation and heartbreaking human and animal pulmonary damage from the recent protracted season of transboundary haze, which blanketed Southeast Asia; and, not forgetting the astronomical stupidity of decelerating global trade flows by United States President Donald Trump's ineffectual attempts to "make America great again" by implementing poisonous rounds of tariffs.

This has hurt the US economy and, far more importantly, the economies of the 192 other better-run, smaller, less-powerful countries.

Has my litany of planetary woes got you down? If so, you might be forgiven for thinking good times will never return.

But they will.

LIFE'S A CYCLE

I say this with certainty because cyclicality is an embedded characteristic of life.

A great way to remind ourselves of this unshakeable principle is to cast our minds back to a recent yet decidedly worse time. When?

Well, consider these salient dates:

March 11, 2020 — The World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a global pandemic;

March 16, 2020 — Then prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin made a national announcement that Malaysia's borders would be closed from March 18, 2020 (I remember this vividly as my family and I were on holiday in Singapore that night and had to rush back into Malaysia before the border shutdown. We drove back on March 17).

March 18, 2020 — The initial Movement Control Order (MCO) began.

March 18, 2020 to March 31, 2022 — We went through, in fits and starts, the MCO, the Conditional MCO, the Recovery MCO, a resumption of massive shutdowns with MCO 2.0 and then MCO 3.0, followed by the scaled National Recovery Plan.

April 1, 2022 — The transition to endemic phase, which ended MCO-era restrictions, and when our international borders reopened.

As Malaysia and the rest of the world dealt with the tsunami and woes of the pandemic, markets oscillated. That oscillation created fabulous opportunities — only seen perfectly in hindsight, of course — for profitable investing.

Did you make large portfolio profits during that time as high BC markets gave way first to plummeting and then volatile DC markets, which set the stage for optimistically higher AC markets?

If your answer is "yes", well done. If it's "no", why not?

Were you waiting for certainty — suffering from analysis paralysis?

If so, will you change your ways as today's staggered tsunamis of woeful news create various buying opportunities in the global capital market?

Yes, bad news abounds — but when does it not? We can never perfectly predict what challenges tomorrow holds.

As we have no control over the often-unwise macro moves by low-quality global leaders, what we should do is take charge of our own micro futures. A great way to do so is to heed the singular surefire way to generate profits in business and investing: Buy low, sell high.

As numerous woes around us build momentum, will you choose to act courageously by calibrating your involvement in the two oscillating "halves" of the capital market: the fixed income (bond) market, and the stock market?

I hope you do.

I also hope you will average down when great investments fall in price, momentarily, and trim some profits when markets surge beyond fair valuation.

If you need a nudge in the direction of wise investing, it might help you to remember that famous line in the famous song in the famous musical Annie, which declares, in the compelling voice of a smiling little girl, that "the sun will come out tomorrow".

You can "bet your bottom dollar" that it will.

© 2026 Rajen Devadason

Rajen Devadason, CFP, is a Securities Commission-licensed Financial Planner, professional speaker and author. Read his free articles at www.FreeCoolArticles.com; connect with him on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason, or via rajen@RajenDevadason.com. You may also follow him on X @Rajen Devadason and on YouTube (Rajen Devadason).