BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink speaks to CNBC on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, USA, on January 15, 2026.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
black rock CEO Larry Fink urged investors to resist the temptation to time the market, arguing that staying invested through turbulent times has historically yielded far greater returns.
“Over time, continuing to invest has become far more important than getting the timing right,” Fink said in his annual chairman’s letter released Monday. “Some of the market’s best days occurred amidst the most disturbing headlines.”
He points to the past 20 years as a notable example, where investments in the S&P 500 have increased more than eight times for every dollar invested. But an investor who missed just the 10 best days of the period would have made less than half that amount.
The billionaire’s warning comes as markets are increasingly driven by rapid shifts in sentiment related to geopolitics, inflation and technological disruption. Stocks soared on Monday after President Donald Trump announced that the United States and Iran would hold talks and halt attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
“The danger is that we get so focused on the noise that we forget what’s actually important,” Fink wrote. “The forces behind today’s headlines have been building for a long time. The old model of global capitalism is collapsing. Countries are spending huge amounts of money to become self-reliant in energy, defense and technology.”
BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management company, with total assets under management of $14 trillion as of the end of 2025.
Fink also warned that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence could widen inequality, enriching those who already own assets while leaving others further behind.
“The vast wealth created over the past few generations has flowed primarily to those who already owned financial assets, and now AI threatens to repeat that pattern on an even larger scale,” he said.
AI-related companies have driven a large portion of the recent stock market rally, concentrating profits among a relatively small group of companies and their shareholders.
