This Week’s Blogger: Scott D. Heins, CFP^®, IAG Chief Investment Officer

The world is always changing. Sometimes it is like a slow-motion replay. Sometimes it moves at light speed.

Changes create winners and losers. This is true in the realms of humanity and the financial markets.

While there are still plenty of challenges in front of us, the plight of the average human around the world has improved drastically over the last 40 years. According to Human Progress, in the United States infant mortality has dropped 47%, food supply per person has increased by 15%, income per person is up 83%, and life expectancy has grown by 5%. In Vietnam, infant mortality has dropped by 67%, food supply per person has increased by 40%, income per person is up 521%, and life expectancy has grown by 10%. Simply amazing.

Changes driven by technology, advances in medical care, and economic reforms make a real difference in people’s lives. A country’s political and economic structures determine which people benefit from these changes and which do not.

Many of the advances in humanity can be attributed to profit-seeking companies that strive to improve their customers’ lives more than their competitors. Every day companies seek to find the right ratio of cost and value for their products and services. In the end, consumers vote with their money to determine which companies win and which companies lose.

Right now, the competition for what is perceived to be the next significant step forward for humanity is heating up, and it is causing some consternation in the financial markets.

Over the last several years, the giant technology companies have, for the most part, stuck to what they do best. This created significant free cash flow, predictable profits, and seemingly ever-rising stock prices. Until now.

Now major technology companies are in a costly artificial intelligence (AI) race against each other. Some will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure and win. Others will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure and lose.

The thought that there may be potential losers among the world’s largest technology companies is not something that has crossed many minds until recently, and we are starting to see the seeds of doubt creep into traders’ consciousness.

So far in 2026, stock prices for some previously magnificent technology companies have fallen while previously forgotten small and international company stocks have seen a boost in interest from traders.

It would be ultra-convenient to know precisely which countries and which companies will successfully change our lives for the better in the coming years. It would make investment decisions much easier.

Alas, even with the benefit of artificial intelligence, we are required to permit change to occur a mere one day, one hour, and one minute at a time. Only when we fully accept and embrace the certain uncertainty of the future do we give our investments the permission they need to compound uninterrupted over long periods of time.

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Quote of the week: Warren Buffett: “The future is never clear; you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.”

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