Investment Risk

One of our key roles is helping our clients understand investment risk. As you would expect we need to ask some questions to help us with this process.

It’s important that we establish what level of risk you are comfortable with compared to the return that might be required to achieve your aims. We can then use the information to assist us in designing your financial plan.

Market Volatility

Academic studies and history show us that in the long term equities will outperform other assets. However such out–performance can often hide significant short term fluctuations. Market volatility is a fact of life. Many clients are looking to use the growth potential of equity markets to achieve their financial objectives. Significant fluctuations in market value can have a considerable impact on your plans. It is our job to ensure your financial plan is robust enough to ride these out and still deliver the growth required.

Asset Allocation

Asset allocation involves diversifying among several asset groups to improve the total return whilst reducing the overall risk. Research has shown that the choice of asset classes and the percentage

allocated to each is the single most important element in a portfolio strategy.

It can account for as much as 94% of a portfolio's performance compared with 2% for market timing decisions and 4% for fund selection. Our investment strategies focus on asset class allocation. Our aim is to create a portfolio for you structured to provide a stable long-term rate of return while minimizing risk, expenses and taxation.

Passive vs. Active

We have a range of passive and active investment strategies available which can be implemented once we have discussed the matter with you and assessed which is the most appropriate for your circumstances.

Wrap

To enable us to spend more time with our clients we use a wrap platform, wherever appropriate. This allows us to provide a more efficient service and streamline our investment transaction and asset allocation processes. Funds are accessed at institutional prices via the wrap which represents a significant cost saving for our clients. More importantly, it will allow you to view all of your investment and pension portfolios in a single statement with current prices at any time.