Every year, many experts try to predict what the markets will do next. These predictions often sound confident—but they’re frequently wrong.

At Willow Creek Partners, we don’t believe that accurate predictions are the key to long-term investing success. Instead, we focus on understanding the bigger picture, staying disciplined, and choosing investments carefully.

In the first few days of 2026, massive headlines have been coming fast and furious.

And we’re barely a week in.

We’ve mentioned a decoupling of US and Chinese economies in this space several times. In many cases, this decoupling is hard for the normal US citizen to see. Many offshore manufacturing contracts have moved from China to other Asian countries, and even more have shifted to Mexico.

Depending on how we as investors consume data and news, there is a lot of noise out there about how different investors allocate their money. Case in point, Short Squeez, a blog we read daily, posted a story recently about Sovereign Wealth Funds being over-allocated to private equity and putting a lot more scrutiny on their current investments because of it.

Got two good eyes, but you still don’t see. A few days ago, CNBC interviewed Chevron CEO Mike Wirth at the Davos World Economic Forum. The obvious intention of the interview was to get a perspective on oil prices from one of the energy industry’s true titans.

When the COVID -19 Pandemic hit, it was a true ‘Black Swan” event. No-one could have predicted its likelihood, magnitude, or long-term impact. The global response of course sent most workers home and tested digital communications tools in ways that we otherwise never would have.

As 2023 started, investors struggled to process the best January on record. An epic January Effect propelled stocks higher despite Q4 2022 earnings reports that were “iffy” at best.