Key points are as follows…
- The past financial year has been rather messy for investors with another long worry list, a bear market in most share markets and record low bond yields.
- However, returns for diversified investors were not disastrous and followed several strong years.
- More importantly there are nine reasons for optimism: okay growth, easier for longer monetary policy, rising prospects for easier fiscal policy globally, we may have seen the worst of the commodity bear market, deflation risks are likely receding, the global profit slump may be close to over, share valuations are okay, investors seem to be getting used to a falling Chinese Renminbi and there is still a lot of bearishness around.
- So expect investment returns to remain constrained and volatile but they are likely to be reasonable