- 2021 was a solid year of gains for stocks and buzzy investments like cryptocurrency.
- This year, Wall Street firms expect easy wins to be harder to come by.
- We asked six experts where they would invest $10,000 now for maximum returns.
Last year, the stock market may have felt like the Wild West with all the wild investing situations that cropped up — special-purpose acquisition companies rose and fell, meme stocks continued to catch the eye of retail investors, and altcoins and nonfungible tokens blew up.
But while it may have been difficult to keep up with all the new ways of investing, making money was pretty simple.
You didn’t need to pick and choose your investments — if you just parked your money in an
index fund
benchmarked to the S&P 500, you’d have enjoyed a nearly 27% gain in 2021. Even if you’d been more selective and chosen a specific industry to invest in, all 11 sectors of the S&P 500 rose last year — the energy sector led with a 53% gain, but even communication services, the worst-performing sector, returned 16%.
Unfortunately, the easy money may have dried up.
Experts from across Wall Street, including at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, believe that 2022 will be a “stock picker’s market.” They think that the days of the entire market rising are over, and it’ll be tougher to separate profitable investments from duds. Investors likely need to prepare their portfolios for a bumpier ride this year, and the sooner the better.
Of course, you could always sit on the sidelines and wait for investing inspiration — but with inflation at a 40-year high, cash could continue losing its purchasing power unless the interest rates on savings rise by enough to cushion that blow. Or, if you’re a long-term investor, index funds will likely serve you just fine again.
Either way, to help you get your personal investments in order for 2022, and perhaps make the most of your well-deserved 2021 bonus, we asked six financial gurus where they would put $10,000 right now. We sought specific, actionable picks from these experts, who include investment chiefs on Wall Street and acclaimed finance-newsletter writers with hundreds of thousands of readers.
Their recommendations are shared below, lightly edited for clarity and length in some instances.
Mark Reeth contributed to this article.