Russia’s actions in Ukraine have created a predictable shock and downturn to world investment markets. It’s a tragedy in so many ways, but focusing only on the effect to investment markets, we would like to remind clients that market rises and falls are expected and various “shocks” to the markets do occur e.g.

  • Last month’s talk about interest rate rises in the US.
  • Last month’s fall in US Technology shares.
  • The COVID Pandemic in March 2020.
  • The banking collapse in 2008 caused by the sub-prime loans.
  • The Gulf war in 2003.
  • The dot com bubble 2000…etc…

Clearly many types of events shock the market, and these do affect investor sentiment and inevitably lead to market volatility. This is expected and considered in the formulation of your wealth plan along with your time frame and risk profile and so in most cases you will be recommended to:

  • Stay invested,
  • ride out the downturn and
  • remember it is time in the market not timing the market that matters.

Repeating previous other sage advice:

  1. Resist the urge to try and time the markets i.e., thinking you can sell now and buy back in at the bottom before or just after markets start to recover. You will likely miss a large part of the rebound which happens suddenly and substantially.
  2. Rely on professional managers not your gut or well-intentioned advice from peers. You should invest and pay for professional advice from experts with education, resources, and experience.
  3. When you sell at a loss you make that loss real, history tells us that markets will recover and rebound. In fact, we posted a similar blog in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic and from then until the end of 2021 we saw a huge increase in markets and returns! https://vjc.com.au/that-time-again-market-volatility/

 

Strategies employed and how they deal with these events…

VOLATILITY IS NORMAL AND EXPECTED

  1. We expect markets to move up and down over time due to world events, performance, and changes in market sentiment etc.
  2. Your wealth plan considers and caters for this.
  3. History has many events that have caused market downturns and to date the markets have recovered and grown after them. This includes the depression in the 1930’s, financial collapses in entire market sectors, 2 world wars and many other wars. If we don’t descend into a catastrophe and destroy the planet and its population then it seems probable economies will emerge and continue similar to other corrections.

DIVERSIFICATION

  1. Diversification is your defence against market volatility, your investments are diversified i.e. they are exposed to many different asset sectors both here and globally.
  2. Those in HUB accessing the CPAL Model portfolios have both manager and investment diversification.
  3. Both the CPAL Models and Morningstar SMA have expert managers in their field making the investment decisions.
  4. Clients in CFS similarly have diversified managed investments.

INVESTMENT TIMEFRAME & RISK PROFILE

  1. How long you intend to be invested combined with your risk profile is also key in dealing with volatility e.g. the recommendation for growth profiles is greater than 5 years.
  • As it is expected that you will experience ups and downs during your investment timeframe in most cases you will be recommended to stay invested, ride out the downturn and remember it is time in the market not timing the market that matters.

RESIST THE URGE TO TIME THE MARKET

  1. At this point in the cycle many clients will call wanting to sell out (at a high point) with the idea that they will rebuy when they see the rebound.
  2. This seems logical but research will show that the rebounds happen suddenly and substantially and hence most will miss the “bounce”.
  3. Hence the above 3 bullet points will likely apply.

INVESTMENT RETURNS

The returns for the market over the past couple of years have been very strong and any correction whilst undesirable should be expected and is presently taking the cream off the top of these strong returns. Even if markets fall further the focus should be on your long term returns and realistic returns, we use realistic and conservative returns in any projections provided in advice documents.

 

Please call if you wish to discuss this further.

Adrian and the VJC Wealth team

 

General Advice warning: the information in this article is general in nature, it is not advice specific to your needs. If you want to act upon the information in this article, then you should seek advice from a qualified professional. VJC accepts no liability to any party for acting from this information unless they have sought advice in a formal engagement with VJC for this purpose.