The last piece of financial media you’ll ever need to read.

No, seriously. You can stop reading other outlets now.

Welcome everyone. I hope you are all looking forward to some time with family and R&R in the coming weeks…. I know I am. Finals week and the busiest time of the year for work have me ready to slam the laptop shut until 2025.

Anyway, I’m going to keep it pretty short and sweet and do a quick recap of how terribly markets performed this year (sarcasm). Or at least that might be what the financial media wanted us to think over the course of the year.

There was no shortage of crash calls, recession predictions, “global market meltdowns”, and yen carry trade unwindings (congratulations, you survived the yen carry trade unwind crash of 2024).

When it is all said and done, the S&P 500 had an absolutely killer year. We chugged along, pretty much up and to the right all year long.

So, take a quick look at some awesome headlines you might’ve seen throughout the year. I’ve picked one from each month from January to November.

And there we have it. Just a constant bombardment of negative takes, calls for crashes, and all for what? To scare you into missing a double-digit return? Give me a break.

These outlets want to get more clicks. Negative takes and fear stimulate the need to read into something, maybe even hit the share button with your friends and family so they know what financial misery is headed our way.

Tell me, does the chart below look anything like what those headlines illustrated? If so, you either need to seek help or you’ve been around long enough to know that these doomsday takes are constant and won’t stop no matter the market environment.

Pretty much none of those articles would’ve served you well when it comes to how you allocate your money or your mindset when it comes to investing. If anything, these articles stood to scare you into worrying about something that you have absolutely no control over.

Hope this helps everyone realize that even the financial media is not immune to clickbait. They actually thrive on it.