17/05/16Do I risk it?
The above picture was taken by yours truly, whilst walking around Leicester Square. The question came into my head “would I risk sending my kid to a school to learn the English language, when they can’t spell ‘English’?” what then followed was another question: “But if you can’t speak or spell English, how would you know that it’s spelt wrong?”
Which presents a brilliant Segway into my blog about Risk-History tells us that investors will run to the market place to invest money in the stock markets about now, when markets are at an all time high. Now, as ever, this blog does not set to give financial advice (Because I’d need to know everything about every reader in order to do that!) but hopefully gives some ideas for you to ponder on……
The Oxford living Dictionary, defines risk as “A situation involving exposure to Danger”…Now I’d finish that off by adding “depending upon how close to that danger you get” walking up Ben Nevis following a well trodden path will carry a lower risk than that of getting up it where there is no path.
Equally, when someone has decided that they’ve had enough of instant access cash rates of say 0.1%, they may try and tie funds up for a year, to earn 1%. The risk will be needing access before the year is up, which may result in a loss of interest. However, going from said bank account to say, ‘Mongolian Yak Warrants*’ (* I made that up!) would potentially be a higher risk, by that, meaning you could lose money, as well as make money.
So risk, becomes a defining word in that some will want it and some won’t-yet; at the sight of the FTSE 100 (currently 7,505 at 2.45pm 17th May 2017) we will see people pile into the market, most often people, who have been in cash deposits for years and after suffering 10 years of inflation reducing the purchasing power of their cash, have just had enough. Not that there is anything wrong with ‘piling in’ if you can accept the ‘pendulum swing’ of that four letter word-risk.
Yes dear reader, Risk. That golfer swing, grandfather clock pendulum swing, that goes back and forth. No golfer starts their shot from their two feet & a grandfather clock wouldn’t work properly if it swung from centre to right and back to the centre. In these examples, in order to go forward, things need to swing backwards first.
So where are we right now? well….The ‘unknown’ of France is now a ‘known’- a centre party leader, trying to unify his country has been welcomed in European and UK markets, but we have our own election up and coming, Brexit, elections/referendums in Spain, Italy and Germany. North Korea, Trump, Middle East and of course, Greece. Can any of us predict how things will play against this backdrop? A familiar phrase that I’ve used before is the tailors’ adage of “Measure twice, cut once” weigh up the pros and cons of any planned investment strategy you plan to undertake-Are you going to target a specific area? or seek to spread things around? if you go for a targeted area, are you prepared to accept what could go wrong, as well what could go right? being well spread may smooth things but it won’t mean you total fund is protected from falling in value,or will you sit tight in cash, knowing the actual value won’t change, but there is chance of it being unable to buy you next year, what it can buy you this year.
It really is a time worthy of thought and a chat with a professional…I’d love to have a coffee and a chat with you.
Until next time,
Victor
