At Forrest Private Wealth, our investment philosophy underpins our financial planning advice, which ensures our client’s wealth benefits from long-term exposure to equity markets. We believe holding a well-diversified portfolio of predominantly dividend-paying businesses over a long-term period is essential in financial planning for wealth accumulation and, ultimately, retirement planning.
By following our retirement planning process, a Forrest Private Wealth financial planner stays true to their investment advice, ignoring the noise and pressures of the market to provide their clients with a stress-free retirement. At Forrest Private Wealth, our financial planners capitalise on an investment philosophy that provides predictable income streams from equity markets, setting clients up for their desired retirement.
Long Term Portfolio
In April, the strong growth we’ve seen this year took a pause. Both Australian and global markets were down in the month due to ongoing inflation and renewed global tensions. There are a few key items in play.
Inflation: Prices for goods and services are still rising, which creates worry and uncertainty.
Economic Concerns: While people are still spending money and wages are going up, overall economic growth is slow.
Bond Market Reactions: In the US, news about the economy caused bond prices to drop and bond yields to rise, which pushed stock prices down as well.
Reserve Bank of Australia: In Australia, inflation is higher than expected, especially in housing and transportation. The Reserve Bank is considering all options, including a potential hike to the current interest rates (early-year expectations are to hold or at some stage reduce).
Despite these challenges, our long-term investment strategy remains strong. Worry and uncertainty can create opportunities. These conditions, along with geopolitical concerns, give us and our underlying managers the flexibility to adjust and protect your investments while seeking growth opportunities.
Short Term Portfolio
Fixed Income and Credit markets exhibited mixed outcomes in April. Markets reacted to concerns about the potential for prolonged higher interest rates, driven by robust economic data. Volatility in the bond market persisted, with yields on long-term bonds increasing. Central bank commentary continues to be a significant market driver. The Australian cash rate remained steady at 4.35% throughout the month.
Despite the recent uptick in inflation in the US and Australia, we maintain the view that the overall trend for inflation is a gradual decline, despite some intermittent challenges. This perspective is supported by the fact that some of the recent contributors to higher-than-expected inflation were unique, seasonal, or due to delays in the transmission of inflationary pressures, such as increased building costs and car prices gradually affecting insurance premiums.
Micro Cap Portfolio
With reporting season complete, macroeconomic themes took over in driving the market in April. Macro headlines includes resilient consumer spending, a continued tight labour market, and higher wages, all contributing to sticky services inflation. This resulted in higher bond yields and equity markets falling globally. With inflation remaining stubbornly high, all eyes are on central banks and expectations of interest rate drops pushed further out.
Forrest Private Wealth’s discipline in providing financial planning, retirement planning, and wealth management services to its clients allows our clients to benefit from years of experience providing financial advice through major impacts to equity markets where staying the course has helped them.
Forrest Private Wealth has a dedicated team of financial planners and support staff providing clients with peace of mind in working towards and achieving their life goals.