Investment Review

As we note elsewhere, Daniel Defoe first coined the phrase about death and taxes being the only certainties in 1726, proving that uncertainty is nothing new!

Though we live in uncertain times, managing investments could be likened to managing uncertainty.

Anything beyond deposit based investments is best viewed over 3-5 years; the greater the perceived risk, the longer the potential investment period. As a result, investors must inevitably accept uncertainty as a fact of life, but regular investment reviews help remove uncertainty.

Much in life is unpredictable - the performance of investment markets over any 3-5 day period, let alone 3-5 years - which creates uncertainty. But it is entirely predictable that your investment portfolio will change shape over time as different funds rise and fall at different rates.

It is also likely that your own view of acceptable risk will shift with changes in your circumstances. And we can predict that your circumstances and views will change over time, but we may not be able to predict exactly how and when these changes will occur.

Investment reviews are opportunities to check how portfolios are meeting objectives set at the outset and then against aims and objectives relevant to circumstances at the time.