Covid-19 and Alexander Calder Financial Limited
We are clearly in a unique space in terms of world health and the impact is now as much on the economies and day-to-day lives of people as it is their health. Of course, our thoughts are with those who have been infected, become ill, or have sadly lost loved ones and no words can express how difficult it has become for some. There is of course comfort a little for most that actually the survival rate for anyone infected is in excess of 95% and in most cases almost 99%.
The impact felt within our business at this time is more of the financial adjustments to our clients investments. However hard anyone tries, or however skilful they are, there is no way to shield any investment 100% from the impact of such market downturns. Of course, we all hear the news and associate ‘the markets’, and consequentially our investments, with the FTSE100 and naturally fear our investments have been affected by the same levels of ‘falls’ as reported. In many cases, indeed most, this is not the case as portfolios are invested to a varying degree across many asset classes and even in such times of adversity there are still sectors that either do well, or are not impacted to the same degree.
A natural reaction to fear is to pull everything tight to ourselves and move away from that which we often just do not understand. Even when our understanding is high, our emotions about ‘losing money’ run higher. It is well known that the best option when investing is to ‘buy low and sell high’, and given the opportunity we would all do this. In the reverse therefore it must be fair to offer that to ‘ sell low and buy high’ is not the most ideal outcome and one which we would all try our best to avoid. Therefore, if we allow our fears and our emotions to over-ride that which we know, we can very easily, at such times, find that we ‘sold’ low and then once confidence had returned (put another way, markets recovered), we then moved back into the markets – we ‘bought’ high.
Please be assured that your funds are managed by professional managers who have a depth of knowledge about trends, risk, volatility, and diligence and will be working very hard at this time to minimise any negative impact for the short-term but always with an eye on the long-term strategy to deliver the fund goals.
Within the office we have taken many steps to ensure we have continuity of service to you our clients, and can arrange review meetings using either the telephone or more modern technology should you have it available. Where necessary we will be able to offer face-to-face meetings within your home but we would strongly advise against this especially if you are within what is termed as the ‘higher risk group’. Most correspondence can be done either by post or email and our aim is to keep everyone safe and use all that is available ahead of meeting face-to-face.
As offered, our thoughts are with those most affected by this virus and our hope is that all our clients will see their investments return to more normal levels, and enjoy positive growth, as soon as the situation allows.
As we are all aware the situation is constantly changing and we will endeavour to keep all clients informed of any action we take but please bear with us as we navigate our way through this most difficult of times.
