Property Funds Close

In times of strife commercial bricks and mortar property funds are not the place to be. Yesterday all the funds that were still open closed their doors to investors selling their holdings. According to the press this was down to staff not being able to value the properties regularly, but its just the next step with everything shutting down.

Before Christmas we took a unilateral decision to sell all of the property holdings we could as we thought there were issues regarding property at that time. There were a couple that had already stopped withdrawals and this was our lead to sell the others.

Markets

UK was down yesterday by -4.05% and speaking to Brewin Dolphin it looks like the floor for the market is 5,000. The previous day it was up 4%.

Prudential PruFund Growth

The announcement on Tuesday of a -11.99% fall in the share price of the PruFund Growth Fund only affects pension plans and ISA’s at the moment. It does not affect onshore investment bonds and it does not affect the PruFund Cautious Fund. Its not to say they will not change their share prices but at the moment they haven’t done.

Experience

We have been in business since 1988 and the two Directors of MPA and our partner at SWP have around 100 years experience in the industry. We met up yesterday to discuss whether we can do anything that may help the situation for clients. We talked about 1987, 1994, 1999, 2008 as examples of extreme falls in markets and what we learned from each shock to the market. We were all in agreement and it was to hold tight and not sell at these prices. It will bounce back and you have to be in the game to benefit when it turns. It is not as bad as 2008 yet but the speed of the fall has taken everyone by surprise. Its only a month ago when we were looking forward to a reasonable year with only a minor issue with China on the horizon. How quickly it has changed.

Vanguard Lifestrategy 60% Equity, which is a 5 out of 10 on the MPA Risk Scale is down -15% since the start of the year. Over 12 months it is down -7.7%, so not catastrophic in the grand scheme of things. The Vanguard 20% Equity fund which is a 3 out of 10 is down -6.7% year to date and -0.91% over 1 year;

Keep safe and I will keep regular updates on the website.

Phil J McGovern FPFS