Conservative Investors, Bank Depositors Get the Last Laugh... And What Google and Microsoft's Chatbots Say about One Another

Source: Parker Brothers

There was a point in 2021 when, if you had money in the bank or just kept it in a brokerage sweep account, you felt like a chump...

It was worse for people on fixed incomes, who relied on interest income to keep them afloat.

There was nothing they or you could do – either keep that money in cash and earn zero, or stuff it into the most overheated market in a generation.

Money markets, CDs, U.S. Treasurys... it didn't matter because they were all earning a variation of the number zero.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, by keeping rates too low for too long, was forcing even the most conservative investors to take risk...

I can't tell you the number of hedge fund analysts and portfolio managers I talked to who – in casual conversation – would muse at how family members were calling them asking them what to do.

These were people who generally knew nothing about the markets, and suddenly they were calling about special purpose acquisition companies ("SPACs"), cryptocurrencies, no…