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Tom Bradley is co-founder of Steadyhand Investment Management, a member of the Investment Hall of Fame and a champion of timeless investment principles.

Maybe it’s the summer weather or I’m just getting sick of all the bad news and uncertainty, but it feels as if I need to give the positive forces equal time. What you read in the news almost always has a negative bias, but it’s particularly dreary right now. And that includes investment news.

A former business partner used to tell me that when a stock is down, you must dig deep to find the positives, because the negatives are in plain view.

I didn’t find my search for good news all that hard. My list is long in life and investing. In our day-to-day lives, we’re experiencing the golden age of television, there couldn’t be a better time to participate in and watch women’s sports, people are drinking less and biking more, cellphones are lasting longer, society is significantly safer (think sunscreen and kids’ helmets) and the young people coming into the work force are amazing.

As for investing, people will be pleasantly surprised when they open their second-quarter account statements. The stock market is doing just fine and so are most portfolios.

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What is helping the market buck the geopolitical turmoil? Nobody knows for sure, but I’ll float a few positive reasons, starting with some favourable long-term trends and finishing with shorter-term factors.

Important forces such as globalization, declining interest rates and deficit spending are waning, but others are alive and well (despite the politicians’ best efforts to get in the way). There are mind-blowing advances in health care, transportation and power generation, management and storage. The middle class is expanding rapidly, particularly in India and China. New, much-needed sources of energy are attracting capital, and costs are coming down with volumes and experience.

Digitization of the economy is well along, but electrification is just getting started and is a one-way street. By that I mean taxi drivers and friends who buy electric vehicles are unlikely to switch back.

The benefits of (non-artificial-intelligence) technology keep spreading through organizations, reducing costs and improving the customer experience. Late adopters, such as government services and health care, are adopting tools and processes that private companies have been using for years.

The trend toward industry consolidation is unrelenting. Fewer rational players mean better control over pricing and more sustainable profits, which is a boon for investors (even if it’s not for consumers).

As for consumers, the world’s biggest customer, the U.S. consumer, is in good shape. Compared with Canada, debt levels are lower, the job market is stronger and housing affordability is far better.

More broadly, however, the U.S. move toward isolation, and the end of the supposed era of American exceptionalism, means there’s more opportunity for everyone else. Actions by the leadership in Washington are serving to share the wealth with other regions. They’ve incentivized China to go full-bore on AI, semi-conductors and electrification. They’ve given Europe’s defence industry a boost. MAGA is out, MEGA is in (make Europe great again).

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And Canada? Well, we’re still figuring it out, but there’s no doubt we’re able to hire and retain more world-leading engineers and academics who are feeling less welcome south of the border.

For investors who are driven by fundamentals such as profit margins and cash flow, there are plenty of forgotten stocks, sectors and even countries to choose from. It reminds me of the early 2000s, when valuation dispersion between the leading tech and consumer stocks and everything else was wide. The result was that many funds did well through the tech wreck years from 2001 to 2003.

Today, price-to-earnings multiples are reasonable everywhere except the U.S., and on anything that isn’t related to AI, crypto, gold and private credit. Until recently, sentiment toward Britain and Europe was rock bottom, along with stock valuations.

And finally, there’s AI. While we actively debate its safety and impact on society, the benefits will start spreading from the providers to the organizations that use it.

The negative stuff that dominates our discourse today will turn out to be not as bad as we now think. It usually works out that way. And the positive stuff we’re overlooking will have an impact, perhaps a significant one. Businesses will continue to grow, innovate and adapt despite chaotic political leadership.