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12 August 2022
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‘Suitability’ of financial advice is something unlikely to be addressed by the Royal Commission, but its adoption and regulation is crucial to the improvement of the wealth management industry.
Good financial advice requires finding out a lot about an investor, in the same way a good relationship involves more than a few online questions.
It makes sense for investors to seek quality financial advice, but sorting through the pool of advisers to find the best can be tough. Don't rely on industry regulation to do the checking for you.
While ASIC reviews the feedback on its robo advice policies, the US regulator makes it clear it requires the same standard of care from robo advisers as it expects from human advisers.
Robo-advisers will make their impact in wealth management, but that doesn’t guarantee their success. Like any business, there will be major challenges to overcome as they attempt to disrupt financial advice.
The fear of sequence risk drives investors to take equity and risky asset exposures out of their retirement portfolios, but is this such a good idea? Looking back over the last 40 years provides some perspective.
Now we're captivated by inflation and higher rates but only a year ago, investors were certain of the supremacy of US companies, the benign nature of inflation and the remoteness of tighter monetary policy.
Companies have been slow to update guidance and we have yet to see the impact of inflation expectations in earnings and outlooks. Companies need to insulate costs from inflation while enjoying an uptick in revenue.
Weaker share prices may have already discounted some bad news, but cost inflation is creating wide divergences inside and across sectors. Early results show some companies are strong enough to resist sector falls.
In 2002, the share price of the company that became Sydney Airport (SYD) hit 80 cents from the $2 IPO price. After 20 years of astute investment driving revenue increases, it sold to private hands for $8.75 in 2022.
There are significant differences in the sector weightings of an ethical fund versus an index, and while this has caused some short-term headwinds recently, the tailwinds are expected to blow over the long term.
Many new investors make common mistakes while learning about markets. Losses are inevitable. Newbies should read more and develop a long-term focus while avoiding big mistakes and not aiming to be brilliant.
Lenders use Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities to finance mortgages and RMBS are available to retail investors through fund structures. They come with many layers of protection beyond movements in house prices.