The Regime Has Changed. Investors Haven’t Noticed.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States entered a period that bears uncomfortable similarities to today.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on March 19, 2026. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Commentary

For most of the past four decades, investors operated in a world defined by falling inflation and declining and eventually low interest rates. The 60/40 portfolio worked beautifully. Central banks held inflation down and stock markets up. That world is gone. What has replaced it looks considerably less comfortable—and disturbingly familiar to anyone who has studied the 1960s and 1970s.