If you’ve been reading my column for a while, you will know one of my favorite mantras during times of market volatility (like what we’ve been experiencing this past week) is “breathe in and zoom out.” Trust me – it helps to shift your perspective, which is exactly what we all need to do in times like these.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when Rick Rieder, Chief Investment Officer at Blackrock, used the same advice on his monthly market update call I attended this week. (Well not the breathe in part but it was implied!)

Rick spent the first part of the call suggesting that our perspective as investors can be greatly skewed by the constant soundbites presented to us in the media. These flashing headlines and short-term graphs focus our attention on point in time details (ie: zoomed in), which usually leads to us missing the bigger picture and causing undue stress (remember, one of the main goals of business media is to retain your attention so they can sell advertising – ie: stress sells!). After a week of market volatility, broadening your lens (ie: zooming out) can give you a much needed change in perspective. Here are a few specific examples (first one I put together, last few from Rick’s presentation).

Let’s start high-level – the S&P 500 (an index of the top 500 publicly traded US companies, weighted by their market cap).

Zooming in on the change over the last five trading days..oof.

How about if we zoom out a bit and look at year to date results? Better..

Let’s keeping zooming out. How about the past year? Much better

One last zoom out.. since Yahoo! Finance tracked data for this graph (around 40 years ago). What a difference a change in perspective makes

Now let’s look at inflation – everyone’s favorite hot topic for the past few years. Recently, there has been concerns over inflation picking back up (whether its in egg prices or housing costs). And yes, some prices have ticked back up. So if you zoom in on the lower right corner, you will see a slight uptick. But look at the entire graph shown below. What do you see? That’s right – falling inflation since 2021. Progress is being made. Yes, more progress is needed to reach that dotted 2% line but we are a lot closer to it than we were just a year ago.

How about the other part of the Fed’s mandate – the labor market? Chart on the left shows the “zoomed in” points where markets have panicked (either due to fewer new jobs than anticipated or too many new jobs). Chart on the right shows the bigger picture – a drastic decline in jobless claims from COVID highs – and jobless claims below the historical trend line from as far back as 1994. When zoomed out, the labor market is in pretty good shape.

Last one..let’s look at the tech sector. Many of these stocks have had a challenging few weeks. If you zoom in, you may think the sector and its biggest names are in trouble based upon the price change since Q1 earnings. But if you zoom out, just look at how these companies have grown earnings above the market rate for almost 15 years – and continue to do so at an impressive clip.

Hopefully you see the benefit of zooming out! When we focus in too tightly on today only – or even the past few days or weeks – it becomes nearly impossible to “see” clearly. So if you must watch the business news or check your online account balance on a daily basis, just be sure you are combatting that with a deep breath in and a big zoom out. Trust me, a change in perspective will help you get thru this (just like it has in the past and will again in the future).

Onward we go,