Stand Fast: A 55-Year Case for Tuning Out the Noise
With life’s continuing cycle of financial crashes, recession, technology surges, geopolitical wrangling, global warming, etc. does the Alchemi mantra 'stand fast, tune out the noise and continue to work on your long-term plan' still make sense?
In answer, let’s reel in the years together, taking stock of what was going on in the world over the past 5 decades. Comparing history and financial information reveals some interesting messages that I think you’ll find reassuring.
1970 - 1980
The 1970s might have started on a high with Dana winning the Eurovision with ‘All Kinds of Everything’, but the decade took a nose-dive after that! A major war in the Middle East led to two major oil crisis that fundamentally transformed the global economy and ended the post-World War 2 economic boom. Oil embargos and escalating oil prices, led to soaring inflation that wiped out vast amounts of wealth. Employment plummeted and equity markets crashed by about 50% in response (1973-1974).
The Troubles violence spilled over into multiple bombings (including one at Dublin Airport and another at the Hilton Hotel in London). Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to lead a major British political party (the Conservatives), and the Vietnam war ended with the fall of Saigon in April 30th1975.
As the decade ended:
Global Population: ~4.45 billion (half of whom lived in extreme poverty)
Ireland’s Population: ~3.4 million
S&P 500 Year-End Close: 110
1980 - 1990
The 80’s were another turbulent decade! The US Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates to crush inflation, but the process caused a deep recession and equity markets fell by almost 30% (1980-1982). In 1987 the equity market fell by over 20% in one day (Black Monday), and in 1989, it fell by over 34% over a 3-month period.
On the upside, Pac-Man and Windows 1.0 were invented, U2 launched their first album, Barry McGuigan won the WBA Featherweight title, and we qualified for our first World Cup football finals!
By the end of the decade…
Global Population: ~5.33 billion
Ireland Population: ~3.51 million
S&P 500 Year-End Close: 339
1990 – 2000
The 1990s started with the Gulf War, and equites fell by about 20% in response. But thankfully, the remainder of the 90s were relatively calm by fiscal standards.
On the technology front, things ramped up considerably and the great dot-com stock mania of the next five years was ignited. Tim Berners-Lee developed the WWW at CERN, Amazon, Yahoo & Google are founded, Netscape Navigator—still more of an idea than an actual product—went public in August 1995, and Dolly the Sheep was cloned (1996)!
Closer to home, Mary Robinson was elected as our first female President (1990) and the divorce referendum narrowly passed (50.3%) in November 1995, allowing divorce in Ireland for the first time since 1937.
As the millennium dawned,
Global Population: ~6.14 billion
Ireland Population: ~3.79 million
S&P 500 Year-End Close: 1,425
2000 - 2010
We paid the price for the relative calm of the 90s with two full scale equity market crashes in the 2000s. The Dot Com bubble finally burst in early 2000 and equity markets fell by about 50% (the Nasdaq index, which has a heavy concentration of technology companies, fell by almost 80%!).
Then came the horrendous events of 9/11 in 2001.
It took several years for markets to recover and then the world fell apart in 2008 thanks to the simultaneous collapse of the housing market and banks. The Global Financial Crisis was like nothing before and spanned 2007-2009 with an almost 60% fall in equity markets. At one point there was literally no money available for borrowing, by anyone, anywhere in the world!
To end the decade, we entered into an IMF/EU bailout programme in November 2010. Scary times.
At the start of 2010
Global Population: ~6.96 billion (but the rate of extreme poverty has fallen to one in three)
Ireland Population: ~4.56 million
S&P 500 Year-End Close: 1,123
2010-2020
This period was again relatively calm with equity markets rebounding strongly, having essentially done nothing for the previous 10 years.
On the technology front, Apple launched the iPad (2010), AI entered the mainstream market through ‘Siri’, contactless payments become mainstream, fraud was exposed within the German fintech company Wirecard, and the EU rewrote the rules on data privacy through GDPR.
Making headlines at home, Katie Taylor won Olympic Gold (2012), Ireland became the first country to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote (2015), and Shane Lowry won the Open Championship (2019).
As we entered 2020…
Global Population: ~7.84 billion (but only one in ten now live in extreme poverty)
Ireland Population: ~4.99 million
S&P 500 Year-End Close: 3278
2020 to date
And so, to our current decade where things certainly haven’t been dull! We kicked the decade off with the UK formally leaving the EU on January 21st 2020. In March, Covid took hold of the world and economies across the globe shut down. Markets fell by over 34% in 33 days but recovered very quickly thanks to huge monetary stimulus.
This monetary stimulus led to a spike in Inflation (fuelled by Russia’s war on Ukraine) and equity markets fell by about 20% in 2022 as a result. Interest rates were increased to stop inflation spiralling out of control and equity markets therefore recovered. But unfortunately, once inflation goes up it tends not to come down, so we’re still feeling its pain via a “cost of living” crisis, with average prices up about 20% from 5 years ago.
But as ever, there is always something to smile about. Kellie Harrington became a national treasure. Cillian Murphy took home an Oscar for Oppenheimer, and Taylor Swifts Era’s Tour whipped the country into a frenzy of friendship bracelets, joy and cowboy boots!
Halfway through this decade, the statistics were as follows
(Note: 2025 full-year data still being compiled as of February 2026)
Global Population: ~8.23 billion
Ireland Population: ~5.46 million
S&P 500 Year-End Close: 5,979
This, then, is the amazing story of these last five decades:
The global population doubled, with extreme poverty slashed from one human in two, to one human in ten. Creating wave upon wave of new middle-class consumers with disposable income fuelling the success of many companies in the S&P 500.
Technology ebbed and flowed. Pushing boundaries through the Internet and smartphones, creating behemoths like Amazon and Apple, and disasters such as the Dot Com crash.
The world shook, and then swiftly reacted and adapted to war, tsunami, bombs, wildfires and global pandemics.
And yet, despite all this turbulence, change, and ‘unprecedented events’, the compound annual growth rate in equity markets (as measured by the S&P 500 Index) has risen 75 times in the 55 years between 1970 and 2025. Illustrating the incomprehensible power of long-term compounding and the value of patience.
Putting this in financial terms, if you’d invested €100,000 in 1970 it would be worth around €4.2 million in 2026! (note this figure is adjusted for inflation and assumes dividends are reinvested and taxes are paid from another source).
Surely these statistics can leave you in no doubt as to the validity of a long-term investment strategy!
Stand Fast | Tune out the noise | Continue to work on your long-term financial plan
If you'd like to talk through what a long-term plan built for your own circumstances could look like, get in touch.
+353 (0)1 614 4362 | www.alchemi.ie | stephen@alchemi.ie
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