The last time people came out of lockdowns from a pandemic was the Spanish Flu, which was subsequently followed by The Roaring Twenties, a decade of wealth building and prosperity.
Alex Kenjeev, president of O’Leary Ventures, said that similarities between now and the start of The Roaring Twenties are evident.
In particular, the travel and hospitality industries are set to outperform on the back of pent-up demand for recreation in the wake of the pandemic and lockdowns, Kenjeev said.
“There will come a day when betting on the travel and leisure industries will be a great move because just like in The Roaring Twenties when people finally came out of the last time we had lockdowns and mask mandates, people are going to want to have a good time,” he said.
Equities are still the must-own asset class for any serious investor concerned about the long-term time horizon, Kenjeev noted.
“[Karl Marx] made the observation famously that history belongs to those who own the means of production and that the means of production changed over history. You initially had in feudal times, the means of production was land, so the feudal lords had all the power. Then as the capitalist revolution took hold…the means of production, that were important, became the capital and factories and so on,” he said. “If you want to have power and wealth you need to own the means of production…and to me, that means owning companies and the only way to own companies is to own equity.”