The year 2018 has been one of consistent evolution and change. One part of society that has been impacted heavily due to the shift in ideals is the financial sectors. Investors in this year shifted their methods and strategies in an environment where uncertain financial policies impacted trade universally. This shift in financial ideals caused a shift in market behaviour leaving a lasting impact on universal technological development. 2018 was a year that brought together key elements of technological advancement that heavily impacted market behaviour and investor trends.
Technological Investor Priority
One of the largest beneficiaries in 2018 were tech industries. In a year that saw an overhaul of investor sentiment, technology remained a steady progressor in investor faith, this is due to the visible improvement in the operations of these industries across the market. This year saw more investment towards technological development with large capital raised by companies specialising in AI, Blockchain, and non-banking financial infrastructures like Venmo. On the flipside, investor faith snowballed in non-regulated financial infrastructures that were impacted by government oversight and policy, the biggest example of this is the fall of the cryptocurrency market. The change in ideals for investors culminated in the year 2018 being the first in history where traditional powerhouse markets like gems and jewellery, oil and pharmaceuticals raising less capital investments than technology and development.
The Shift In Investor Education
2018 was the year of the educated investor, financial ideals in the past year were highly focused on regulation policies by worldwide markets, investors became more cautious in investing large amounts in dwindling markets with unstable market forces, the largest drop-off in investor faith was experienced in American markets with unstable policy regulations creating an environment of uncertainty across industries. Few investors relied on sentiment-based investment, and traditional market faith dwindled heavily. The focus shifted to conservative investment banking courses strategies in most industries, the exception being medical technology, AI and security.
What Are The Concerns?
The past year also was a year of deep introspection by markets on core issues of technology development, with Facebook, Google and Uber being questioned by governments and users alike on user-privacy, applicational integrity and social impact issues like cyberbullying, crypto safety and data regulation. This created an uncertain environment that led to investors questioning the ethics of technological development, the investor behaviour reflected resistance to social media investments due to lack of oversight and concerns of leadership overhauls. Another aspect of technological development that impacted investor sentiment and behaviour is the use of technology without oversight, the need for government regulation or the reluctance to accountability to ethical and sustainable development.
In conclusion, 2018 was a year of shifts in financial ideals, the year shifted the thought of investors in the short and long term and focused heavily on regulated tech infrastructure while also showing caution amongst investor faith in traditional markets. This created a new dynamic for both technological evolutions while creating questions about checks and balances to sustain the development in ethical means. The trend of technology investments focused on medicine, AI and cybersecurity seem on the up in the year 2019 as well, but other networks like social media and crypto-currencies seem to lack investor faith.
