This note on how an Investment Committee works hard behind the scenes to make sure that client portfolios continue to remain robustly structured and likely to provide clients with the greatest chance of a successful investment journey. Often - after much analysis and discussion - that may mean making no changes. It uses the analogy of a duck looking serene above the surface of the water (the client portfolio) but paddling hard below the surface to stay where it wants to (the Investment Committee).

Happy New Year! This note is our now regular piece 'Looking backwards and forwards', which provides an overview of how major asset classes have performed in 2023, and trying to place 2024 in perspective. We compare 2023 to 2022 as well as providing 3-year cumulative asset class returns which are strongly positive in aggregate. Despite the troubles and uncertainties in the world, there are some pretty wonderful pieces of evidence of the world's collective progress in many areas, which help act as a counterbalance to the doom and gloom that overwhelms the daily news. We hope you find it of interest.

In light of the horrific events in Israel at the weekend and subsequent developments, we have put together a short note highlighting the very limited direct impact the small portfolio exposure to the Israeli stock market will have. So far, other broader markets have been relatively stable. The risk of escalation exists and it is very difficult to evaluate the likely paths ahead, not least for global markets. Fortunately, the market takes all of these potential outcomes and incorporates them into today's prices. Outguessing the market is extremely challenging. The key is to remain invested in a highly diversified portfolio.

Some relatively new clients to investing may have experienced relatively flat or negative outcomes in the past couple of years. A tension often exists between long-term investor goals and the short-term emotions investors suffer. We have penned this note to provide some key points to reflect on to help ease this tension, along with providing some data around the chances of real losses over the short term and how this improves materially as the holding period expands.

Our latest Investment Insight, 'The error of reacting to market falls', shows that in any year both equity and bond markets fall from their intra-year highs, sometimes materially. But to react to this information, either by trying to time movements or simply reacting to these falls, risks missing out on the returns that markets deliver.

At the start of 2022 investors needed reminding that investing is not an easy game, despite having enjoyed around a decade of relatively strong – and fairly consistent - market returns, even in light of a global pandemic, recession, and political polarisation. 2022 has laid bare the fact that investing can very much be a game of ‘three steps forward, one step back’. If there was no risk of market downside, it would be unreasonable to expect any return at all above cash. This short note provides a brief look at the past 12 months, and highlights some of the lessons we can learn as investors.