We are looking forward with optimism to 2022 and we hope you are too.

While each year brings with it both new challenges and residual struggles from the years before, it also offers opportunities for growth and understanding.

We know now more than we ever did about so many things, and we’ll learn even more in the coming months. Our vocabularies have increased, like they do every year, as we’ve researched and discussed global events.

We’ve all learned more about how things like supply chain issues and labor shortages can affect the economy; interest rates and the way the federal reserve can manipulate them; novel viruses and how they mutate; how resilient corporate profits can be.

We know, because we’ve seen it before, that we should expect some level of volatility in the markets. We also know, because we’ve done so many times, how to combat that volatility with patience and diversification.

We know that the U.S. stock market has been enjoying a historic run over the past three years. We also know that returns like that are not sustainable and that we should adjust our expectations moving forward.

We have not seen double-digit inflation numbers since 1981 and we don’t expect to see them that high this coming year, but we do see consumer prices ticking up and anticipate factoring those inflated costs into our family budgets and investment plans.

We know this now, so we can deal with it as it happens.

Maya Angelou once said, “When you know better, you do better.”

That’s the attitude we’re bringing into this fresh, new year. We’ll move forward armed with the knowledge we’ve acquired during these last challenging years, and with our resolve to put that knowledge to work for you.

Happy New Year from all of us at Winch Financial. We wish you peace, good health, happiness and prosperity in the coming year.