Warwick (the Rose City of the Darling Downs) was the venue for the first of our 2012 Client Briefings. On a delightful Spring morning on 9th October, Warwick (our Director/ Financial Planner) welcomed the clients and other guests who attended and, after a short review of the causes and consequences of market volatility on a month-by-month basis for the 2011-12 financial year, introduced Trent Fitzgerald (Queensland State Manager for Advance Asset Management).
Trent addressed his attentive (and receptive) audience on some global economic and political issues before analysing some of the fundamental factors that will most likely impact the Australian investment markets for the balance of the 2012-13 financial year. In his final summing up,Trent gave us the Advance view on the various asset classes for the coming year and beyond (up to 3 years).
It looks like we should brace ourselves for a continuation of the rocky road (at least from the Advance view of the markets) – BUT with a mildly positive trend!
Noosa (tourist Mecca of the Sunshine Coast) provided the venue for the second (and final) of the Briefings for the year.Warwick again led the meeting with the introduction given at the first briefing, before introducing Michael Gollagher (Account Executive for Perpetual Group in Queensland).
Michael delivered a very measured, but confident address as to his firm’s view of the outlook for both domestic and global economies – and investment markets. Those views were similar to what we heard from Advance earlier in the week and are in accord with our own view.
It seems that the US election process is a strong influence on near-term expectations; closely followed by the management of the ‘fiscal cliff’ issues; then come the European dramas, possible economic disruption in China and potential ‘outbreak’ between Israel and Iran. Get through those events in the next three months or so and the outlook for 2013 isn’t too bad – a long stumbling, edging upwards seems to be the common call (although there are still a number of ‘nay-sayers’ who see financial Armageddon a constant and serious threat).
Thanks to all of the clients who came along to the above briefings – and for the complementary remarks for our speakers at each event.
If you have any favorite ‘key points’ from having attended either of these events, please share them with us: you can use the Comments facility below, or our Contact us page.
