It’s that time of again, when harried finance editors ask reporters to call investment professionals and cobble together top predictions for the coming year. These are fun to write. But for readers, they’re more entertaining a year later.
Take the late 2010 Barclays Capital Global Macro Survey of more than two thousand institutional investors. The pick for the best performing asset class in 2011 was equities (with 40% support), followed by commodities (34%) and bonds (less than 10%).1 The consensus prediction was a 15% gain in the US S&P-500 for the year to around 1,420.
As we now know, the truth turned out to be rather different. To the beginning of December and using broad indices, diversified fixed income was the best performing asset class of the year, followed by government bonds. Returns from commodities and equities were negative. The year-to-date return for the S&P-500 was close to zero. (And remember, these are the forecasts of big institutional investors.) (more…)
It has been a long week with investment markets and a more bumpy ride than usual. To help reinforce the message of why not to give up and sell at these levels, you might be interested in the following thoughts. (more…)
Summerhill subscribes to multiple sources independent investment research, and the main theme for one of the subscriptions for this quarter is the long term outlook for residential property.
Given the interest in this topic generally, attached is the executive summary of the subscription which you may find of interest.
If you would like a copy of the full article, let us know and we will email a copy to you on request.
Clarity is finally received to confirm that SMSFs can continue to invest in collectables and personal use assets. However, new rules will apply to how these investments are held and used. Draft regulations have been released to outline the new rules. A summary of these draft regulations are below. (more…)
It was fun while it lasted…and there is probably more fun ahead
Well it had to happen sooner or later. After seven successive monthly gains, share markets gave some ground in October. Over the month, the US S&P500 index fell by 2%, while Australia’s ASX200 fell by a little over 2% (and then began November poorly). (more…)
As a result of the significant downturn in financial markets, the Government has announced a 50% reduction in the minimum drawdown requirement for account based pensions for the year ending 30 June 2009. This will apply to account based, allocated and term allocated pensions and annuities. (more…)
