2019 was a vindication year for the traditional asset management industry and asset allocators like us. Many skeptics sat on the sidelines in cash and missed the best year for returns we have had in a very long time. Our clients enjoyed excellent returns in both absolute and relative basis.

While 2017 was low positive and 2018 was negative, 2019 was very positive and brought the three-year returns comfortably into the annual targeted return range. This is the nature of the beast - market returns simply do not go in straight lines.

Our eyes now turn to 2020. As always, the crystal ball has its limitations and across our team we have slightly differing views for 2020. However, the consensus view is to remain faithful to our asset allocation principles.

I have just returned from spending two days with Pimco in London at their annual conference for investors. Pimco is one of the largest bond specialist firms in the world with an incredible depth of resources. The audience consisted of investment professionals from Europe, and it was apparent that everyone had come to hear not only Pimco’s macro-economic view, but also to clarify just how concerned we, as investors,  should be and what changes we should be making, if any, in the current circumstances.

It was an exceptionally high-level discussion and I will try to share some of the messages with you below. An interesting aspect of the investment world is how different personalities gravitate towards different asset classes. Optimists gravitate towards equities, pessimists to bonds and those with perhaps a tad too much hubris towards hedge funds. Pimco is a firm specializing in bonds. They ooze caution through the air vents. So whilst they were professionally non-committal about whether we are heading towards a cyclical change and/or recession, or not, they did an excellent job trying to identify whether there are any relevant signals now. The bottom line is no panic signals but elevated levels of caution looking into 2020.

I am writing to you during our office move. Workers are all around busy packing and unpacking boxes. We have been in our old building for 10 years. At the time we moved in there, the S&P was about 880 points and the Dow Jones was about 8300 points. Since then they have gone up by 242% and 244% respectively. Even after a tough year and pretty awful 4^th quarter, the long-term gains are impressive. It may appear as though it was easy to make money however; there were plenty of reasons to be concerned along the way. When we said to clients over the years "focus on the long term", so far, we have been right.

As I tidied my office for the move I found a collection of year-end predictions for years gone by written by some of the highest paid experts in the world. Some were right some of the time; many were wrong most of the time… Some were right in the longer term and very wrong in the short term. It seems no one has the perfect crystal ball. 2018 rollercoaster has been no different but more on that below.

We look forward to hosting you in our new offices at the Amzur building.

Our first thoughts after seeing Germany’s early exit from the FIFA world cup was that we place too much reliance on Germany for the strength of the Eurozone and maybe we should exercise more caution when allocating money to Europe. The FIFA World Cup has many positive messages for the global economy and we must not be too quick to focus only on the negatives.

2018 so far has been a difficult year for asset allocators, like Pioneer. Across the industry, returns have been difficult and disappointing in absolute terms. In this review, we will try to explain what is happening.

2017 was a good year for risk assets. Risky asset returns surpassed expectations and our clients enjoyed excellent risk-adjusted returns. Now our sights are on 2018. We hope you find our comments on Bitcoin, USA Tax Reform and research on expecting a crisis informative and relevant.