Last week we saw extreme market volatility continue while the S&P 500 lost about 8% of its value due to continued concerns regarding COVID-19 and the potential damage the coronavirus continues to cause on the global economy. While we hope the bad news will begin to ebb, there’s a decent chance that things get worse before they get better, and we are remaining cautious with our approach to putting money to work.
While closely monitoring all asset classes in which our clients are or may be invested, our primary investment focus last week was to reduce BBB corporate credit exposure in our clients’ portfolios. We believe that BBB credit currently carries high downgrade and default risk and that the return does not currently compensate investors for those risks. To do this, we identified funds that held a large portion of BBB credit and swapped them out for similar funds with lower BBB exposure.
This week, our focus will likely be watching global equity classes for an entry point. For at least the past year, we have been of the belief that global equity markets are generally overvalued and have been waiting for An opportunity to increase client exposure to equities. We believe this time may be close for clients and investors to begin to begin to dollar cost average into equities.
Finally, while investments and financial markets are certainly at top of mind for many of us, it is important to remember that long-term financial planning should remain a priority. John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” We like to change that around a little bit: while life is happening, it’s important to be busy planning for the future.
Please feel free to reach out to us if you would like to discuss anything specific regarding your investment portfolio or your planning objectives.