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Last week, the US S&P500 share market index finished the day at an all-time high, which would be a cause for celebration … if it wasn’t the 33rd time it’s happened this year. Similarly, the ASX200 got within spitting distance of its record – which it had only just set in late August.
Pretty much no matter where you look, markets are smashing it out of the park, so much so that even gold, a relatively boring asset, is the talk of the town.
To crash or not to crash? That is the question.Credit: Michael Howard
Obviously, this is great news for investors and anyone with a super fund, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the good times can’t roll on forever. At some point, markets will have to correct themselves – with the trillion-dollar question being, when?
What’s the problem?
Global markets have been steadily rising since 2023, when the world began to shake off the shackles of the pandemic, economies picked back up and interest rates began to rise again in earnest. Since then, there have been repeated warnings that markets were heading for a downturn, including some from the Oracle of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett.
Guessing what will happen with markets is akin to answering an impossible question, like how long is a piece of string, or how much is that doggie in the window? But that won’t stop us from trying.
What you can do about it
We’ve gathered some perspectives from financial boffins and Money gurus to answer two questions: are markets about to crash, and what should you do about it?