*This article was written MFS Chief Investment Strategist, James Swanson. The article was first published and distributed by MFS and has been used with permission.

Active vs. Passive Investing

In recent years one of the most commonly discussed investment topics is whether or not investors are better served by Passive or Active investment strategies. A couple of weeks ago Slade Robertson, from Devon, presented his views at a conference on this issue. Slade was asked to represent the Active side of the debate and we thought our clients would find it useful this month to read some of his views from that conference.

The United States political environment is rarely without interest but the sheer volume of surprising news in recent times has been staggering. In contrast economic news has been generally pedestrian and market movements have been so limited that the VIX index (which measures the expected volatility of the S&P500 over the next 30 days) recently touched its lowest level since 1993!

Paul Glass spoke to Nick Grant at National Business Review about what he believes should be prioritised in the 2017 budget (11 May 2017).

Click here to view the discussion.

Paul Glass speaks to the New Zealand Herald in the latest Economy Hub video series regarding the OCR (11 May 2017).

Devon market update, provided by Nick Dravitzki, 20 April 2017.

In managing our clients’ NZ and Australian investments it is critical to have a clear view on what is happening in China. China is not only the worlds’ second largest economy, Australia’s largest and NZ’s second largest trading partner, its economic performance is also very important to investor sentiment around the NZ and Australian share markets. We send a member of our investment team to China annually, as there is no substitute for being on the ground to gain a detailed understanding of what is actually happening.

The past 12-months has seen a range of challenges thrown at equity markets globally. These have been well recorded by financial commentators and include unexpected outcomes with Brexit and the US Presidential election. Despite the widely held view that these outcomes would have been negatively received by investors, global stock markets have continued to push significantly higher. The US market is now up 13% from the Trump election and trading at record highs. A contributing factor has been low interest rates but the other very important influence has been corporate earnings.

Devon market update, provided by Nick Dravitzki and Tama Willis, 16 February 2017.