BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says volatility and the Iran war are not reason to divest from the market

BlackRock $BLK CEO Larry Fink urged people not to divest from the market amid ongoing volatility, saying it would be short-sighted to pull money out now.

"Over ​time, staying invested has mattered far ​more than getting the timing ⁠right. Over the past two decades, every dollar invested in the S&P 500 grew more than eightfold," he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders obtained by Reuters.

The executive's warning comes as markets across the globe have been in turmoil following the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran, which has sent oil prices skyrocketing and caused fears of global energy disruptions.

"We are living through a period where things ⁠that would've ​defined a decade have become routine: wars with global repercussions, trillion-dollar companies, a fundamental reordering ​of international trade, and the advent of the most significant technology since, at least, the computer," Fink wrote. "Some of the market's strongest days came amid the most unsettling headlines."

He added that "the danger ​is that we focus so much on the noise that we forget what actually matters."

In the same letter, Fink warned that AI could exacerbate the already widening wealth divide. "The massive wealth created over the past several generations flowed mostly to people ​who already owned financial assets," Fink said. "Now AI threatens to repeat that pattern ⁠at an even larger scale."

Fink, who runs the largest asset manager in the world, said history points to how this could happen. "Transformative technologies create enormous value — and much of that value accrues to the companies that build and deploy them, and to the investors who own them," he said, not to everyday people.

Still, he emphasized that AI will be a part of life going forward. "AI will create significant economic value. Ensuring that participation in that growth expands alongside it is both the challenge and the opportunity," he wrote.