How Millennials and Gen Z Can Invest in a Better Future

更新於 2023/05/03發佈於 2023/05/03閱讀時間約 27 分鐘

Hello. In the coming decades, my generation of millennials and Gen Xers will inherit the largest amount of wealth humanity has ever created some $30 trillion. That's a huge wallet.

millennial 千禧世代
出生於1981年至1996年之間的一代人。

Gen Xer X世代
出生於1965年到1980年之間的一代人。

humanity (n.) 整個人類，包括過去、現在和未來的所有人。
這個詞語通常用於描述人類的共同經驗、命運和挑戰，強調人類之間的聯繫和共同體。 (不可數名詞)

Unluckily for us, we'll also inherit some huge issues climate change, geopolitical instability, and inequality. What we choose to do or not do with this enormous wallet will define the future of our species. No pressure, folks.

geopolitical instability 全球政治不穩定
Geopolitical instability has increased in the region due to ongoing conflicts and tensions between neighboring countries.
inequality 社會不平等
The widening gap between the rich and poor is a major contributor to social inequality in many countries around the world.

Why, might you ask, am I talking about my generation's wallet? Well, the reason why is that I'm an investor, and the essence of my job is to allocate your savings to build a better future. Because I'm also a millennial who doesn't particularly like losing sleep over the thought of rising global temperatures. My job also requires me to think about what's good for society and where I sit.

the essence of 某個事物或概念的核心或本質
通常用於表達一個人或一個事物最重要的特徵或最基本的特點。
The essence of love is to care for and support another person unconditionally.

allocate (v.) 分配或分派資源、財產或時間等，以達到特定目的或完成任務。
在商業或財務領域，allocate可以指分配資金或資產到特定的投資組合或項目中。在項目管理中，allocate可以指派特定的資源或成員到不同的任務或工作中。
The company needs to allocate more resources to marketing in order to increase sales.

One of the keys to bettering the world is ESG investing. ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance. Think of ESG as additional little pieces of data that some investors consider when analyzing the risks or opportunities of an investment.

So, for example, a car company that starts selling more electric vehicles may be around longer in the future when we can't burn as many fossil fuels. So an investor might consider that company to be a safer place to put their money. In an ideal world.

Here's what ESG promises. It promises better investment returns because money is invested in companies with sustainable practices, which makes them likelier to be around long-term. It promises business leaders who share more and better data about what their companies are doing.

sustainable practice 指在生產和運營過程中採用環保、節能、節水等可持續性措施，以減少對環境的負擔，並促進社會、經濟和環境的可持續發展。
sustainable (adj.) 可持續的，能長期保持的
通常在環境、社會和經濟等方面使用。
Many people are now choosing to live a more sustainable lifestyle by reducing their carbon footprint, using renewable energy sources, and practicing eco-friendly habits.

It promises greater productivity by allocating money to companies that maintain strong relationships with customers, employees, and suppliers. That's the vision. The good news is that some people younger generations especially, have started buying into this vision, and ESG strategies have gained a ton of momentum over the past years.

That's the good news. Hashtag happy. The not-so-good news is that we're still far away from achieving the full promises of ESG.

Here's a sobering fact a recent survey from Callan, a major investment consulting firm, suggests that about half of institutional investors consider the benefits of ESG to be unclear or unproven. In other words, many of the people who will allocate millennials and Gen Zier's money aren't fully convinced that ESG is relevant when deciding where to put your money. Now, I think there are many reasons why this might be the case.

sobering fact 引人注意的事實
常用於描述一些不好的消息或負面趨勢，例如經濟下滑、環境問題或社會不平等等。它也可以用來引起注意或警示人們，讓他們重視某些重要的問題或趨勢。
The sobering fact is that the world's oceans are becoming more acidic due to climate change, which threatens the survival of many marine species.

For example, investors focused on short-term outcomes might not necessarily know the best way to consider longer-term sustainability. Or there may be a sense that companies can't do well and do good at the same time. Whatever the reason may be, this is a problem, folks.

sustainability (n.) 永續性
The company's sustainability report highlights their efforts to reduce waste, use renewable energy, and support local communities.

there may be a sense that
用於描述一種推測或猜測的感覺或想法，常用於引出某種主觀感受或觀點，而不是確切的事實或證據。

If the people running the investment strategies don't anticipate ESG will work, how can we achieve its full promises? The keyword in all of this is expected. Let me now tell you something I didn't fully appreciate until I started working in finance. We'd all like to think that investment decisions are made with cold, hard data and nothing else.

But the truth is that investors are people, and the economy is made of people, which means that like it or not, a lot of what happens in financial markets comes down to psychology and expectations. And these expectations can be a force for good or bad. John Maynard Keynes, one of the fathers of modern economics, once famously described how powerful expectations, or animal spirits, as he called them, can play a powerful role in markets.

animal spirit 動物精神(經濟學詞語)
指的是市場參與者情緒和信心對經濟活動的影響。在經濟學中，animal spirit認為市場行為並不完全由理性決策驅動，而是受到人們的情緒和信心影響。當市場參與者對未來經濟前景感到樂觀和自信時，他們會更願意進行投資和消費，從而刺激經濟增長；反之，當他們感到憂慮或恐懼時，則可能會把錢留在手中，導致經濟放緩或衰退。

He also had a pretty sweet mustache. Anyway, I digress. The point is that I've seen the power of what expectations can do.

And here's a firsthand example. I'm from Venezuela, and in my late 20 teens, my home country experienced one of the worst periods of hyperinflation ever recorded. Now, there were many reasons why this hyperinflation took place, and I won't go into all of them here.

hyperinflation (n.)惡性通貨膨脹

But among those reasons was a concept called inflation expectations. What inflation expectations basically means is that when people believe prices in the future will go up, that belief that animal spirit can literally cause prices to rise. Today expectations create reality.

So coming back to ESG, what Venezuela and Lord Keynes have taught me is that making ESG and sustainability mainstream will require us to literally redefine society's expectations of what ESG is and what it can do. That might sound like a tall order, but I think there are a few things you and I can do about it. One solution investors are working on is to standardize ESG metrics.

tall order 高要求；艱鉅任務
指的是一個困難而且需要很大努力才能達成的要求或目標。
Asking a group of amateurs to climb the mountain within a week is a tall order.

metric (n.) 測量指標

So, for context, right now, there are lots of divergent opinions about what metrics matter most or are material. And in the middle of this analysis, is paralysis, because there are a million things we could be measuring, it's no surprise why some investors are skeptical. Standardizing ESG metrics is showing some promise already.

skeptical (adj.) 懷疑的
I am skeptical of his claim that he can finish the project in one day, as it seems too good to be true.

Instead of incentivizing investors to cherry-pick data that make companies look good, they encourage us to measure what matters. For example, data security is massively important for healthcare companies because patient safety and security are paramount. Although important data security might not be as central a consideration for, say, a kitchen cabinet manufacturer.

incentivize (v.) 提供激勵措施，以鼓勵人們採取行動，或達到某個目標。
The company plans to incentivize its employees by offering bonuses for meeting certain performance targets.

cherry-pick data
選擇性地挑選和引用數據，以支持自己的觀點，而忽略其他數據。這樣的做法可能會導致結論不全面或者不正確。

There's a cool Harvard Business School study that was released not too long ago, and it found that companies that address material ESG issues can outperform companies that don't by as much as 9% per year. That's good news. Hashtags can't stop, won't stop.

outperform (v.)表現優異；超越
A outperforms B：A 的表現勝過 B
outperform expectations：表現優於預期
outperform the market：表現優於市場平均水平

Here's a second solution. Investors like me are working on literally changing the way we calculate financial forecasts. So right now, most investors use financial models to make educated predictions about what a company might do in the future and how much money it's going to make.

educated prediction
意味著基於通過研究、分析或經驗所獲得的信息、數據和知識對某件事情進行預測或估計。

Let's just say we also excel at making spreadsheets. I'm so thrilled more than zero people laughed at that one. What if, though? What if, in addition to basic financial data, we built in other pieces of data into our models that are predictive of how much earnings a company is going to make.

But beyond standardized ESG metrics or new ways of calculating financial forecasts, I think the third and most important thing we need is trust. If we trust and expect that companies that do good will be around longer, we start to create a future where ESG becomes an indelible part of any company. We start to create a future where sustainable companies are less risky to own and money managers believe in using the right data to make better decisions.

indelible (adj.) 無法去除的；無法洗掉的
可以用來形容某些事物是不會被忘記或抹去的，通常是因為它已經留下了深刻的印象，或者被深深地刻在某些東西上面。
The war had an indelible impact on the country's economy and politics.

We start to create a world where you, the personal investor, leverage the power of expectations to demand even more tools, even better metrics, and so on and so forth, where trust in the system improves further. Economists might call this a virtuous cycle. I sometimes call this the virtuous cycle of how to keep humanity alive for centuries and eons to come.

leverage (v.)借助已有的…實現新（或更好）的目標
在這段話中，指的是將某物發揮到最大優勢。
She leveraged her network of contacts to secure the job offer.

virtuous cycle 善循環
當一件事物正面影響另一件事物，進而促進另一件事物的積極影響，從而形成一個良性的循環，其中每個環節都相互促進，帶來積極的結果。
Saving money consistently and investing it wisely can create a virtuous cycle of financial growth and stability.

eons 數百萬年或更長，可以用來描述歷史上遠古的事件或是地球上的演化過程。

Yay. Awesome. But that might be a little too long.

So for short, let's call it the virtuous cycle of investing in the 21st century. Because like it or not, it represents the future of investing. If there's one thing to take away from what I've been saying, it's these fellow millennials and Gen Xers start thinking about your assets today.

Start thinking about your savings, what might be passed down to you, and how it can be used to build the world's future if you don't invest your own money. Ask your fund manager what they plan to do with your assets, what metrics they use, and why. Your pension funds, your 401K, and even the money in your savings or checking account all can be put to work to create the virtuous cycle of investing in the 21st century.

pension funds 退休金基金

And if this sounds like a pie-in-the-sky idea right now, think about Lord Kane's mustache for a second and consider whether it's your expectations that may any changing. Thank you.

pie-in-the-sky 不切實際的；看似美好的
The CEO's plan to double the company's profits in a year was just pie-in-the-sky thinking, given the current economic conditions and competition.

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