Coronavirus – How to Protect Your Investments

What a year this month has been! I can’t believe I wrote a 2020 Investment Outlook just nine days ago and talked about trade and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East as potential trapdoors for markets, without any mention of epidemics. Things certainly do develop quickly!

Most importantly here, the sensible advice when it comes to protecting yourself and your family from the coronavirus is to wash your hands thoroughly and often. There’s a lot of alarmist “fake news” out there but this article keeps things very simple.

So what’s the equivalent of washing your hands for your investment portfolio? In yesterday’s LinkedIn post, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio put it quite succinctly: “When you don’t know, the best investment strategy is to be smartly diversified across geographic locations, across asset classes, and across currencies.”

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then hopefully he is preaching to the choir. Here’s a post I wrote in October 2018 titled “Don’t Panic”.

A couple of points I would clarify for individual investors, and expats in particular:

• Diversification is important, but make sure your weighting to each asset class fits your risk profile. Conservative investors and people close to retirement should have a heavier weighting to cash and bonds than a young, growth-oriented investor.
• Dalio mentions diversification across currencies, which is by no means a bad thing, but remember it’s also important to build assets in your base currency to minimise currency risk.

So stay safe out there: don’t panic, wash your hands and stay diversified.

Disclaimer: This should go without saying, but the information contained in this blog is not investment advice, or an incentive to invest, and should not be considered as such. This is for information only.