Investors need to adjust to the 'new normal' investment environment

SYDNEY - Sept. 15, 2016 - PRLog -- Investors need to adjust their expectations and investment strategies in line with what is now becoming the 'new normal' in terms of the investment landscape.

"We have recently seen some significant events including Brexit, the low and even negative interest rates (in other countries) that have the potential to bring about a difficult investment climate," said James O'Neill, Director at ILQ Australia during his recent speech at the Sydney Executive Business Association (SEBA) event.

O'Neill added that investors need to be more actively involved in managing their investments to ensure that they can take advantage of opportunities in other markets including forex (currency markets, commodities and futures markets.

"It is a fact that we are seeing lacklustre growth in many investment areas, but at the same time, there are still pockets of opportunities for astute investors. It is a matter of keeping abreast with the markets and grabbing the opportunities as they come along," O'Neill said.

During the event, which gathered the country's top wealth planners and groups, other speakers also focused on the challenges being faced by investors in the current investment environment.

Mark Sing, Director at Wealth Success, touched on the importance of keeping abreast with the latest developments in the world of investing as the global economy is undergoing an unprecedented pace of change.

Lance Gantman, Business Development Manager from ANZ Wealth, said "It is no longer a viable strategy to simply invest money in a time deposit product in this low interest rate environment, as the returns from these investments simply do not provide adequate returns,"

He added that "It has become ever more important to be able to identify as to where realistic investment returns are going to come from, and hinted that investors will have little choice but to take on more risk to achieve this."

Tom Griffiths, Director and Portfolio Analyst at UBS Australia, re-iterated the fact that investors will now have to gain a global perspective in the chase for yield. He also outlined the possible investments which are consistent with the current economic climate.

Griffiths reminded the audience that the current low interest environment may change, just like in any other financial markets and investors should keep this in mind especially when investing in assets of a longer term time horizon.

Mark Gleeson, Technical Manager at ANZ, took the audience through the latest proposed changes in Australian Superannuation (Super).

According to Gleeson, "Although in general, the proposed changes would make it more difficult to put money into Super, there are proposed increases in contribution limits for eligible contributors."

He added that the latest proposed changes would probably serve to make Super a fairer proposition for all categories of contributors.

For more information, visit: http://ilq.com/