When capital markets decrease, clients start to doubt and expectations will be disappointed. How to deal with these clients in times of volatile markets? This snack may support you when talking to clients.

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk.”

Mark Zuckerberg

Be prepared for unstable markets

Market fluctuations are getting stronger and your clients more restless? Here you will find current information for assessing the market situation and tips for your client communication.

Tips for your client communication

Checklist for your client communication

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Tips for your client communication

Communication in times of volatile markets

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Present some solutions


Your client invested and now markets are volatile. Depending on the way the money is invested (lump-sum investment or ongoing regular payment), there are different options to think about.


Lumb-sum investment


If you don’t need your money right this instant, you have no reason to fear market fluctuations.

Here are some arguments for staying the course:

Long-term price trends: Your client has a long-term investment horizon. Losses have almost always been made up in the past.

Professional management​: You have everything under control and react calmly to market fluctuations.

Broad diversification: A blend of various asset classes can cushion individual losses.

Here are some arguments for staying the course:

Long-term price trends: Your client has a long-term investment horizon. Losses have almost always been made up in the past.

Professional management​: You have everything under control and react calmly to market fluctuations.

Broad diversification: A blend of various asset classes can cushion individual losses.

Behave rationally

Investors react emotionally and do not always make the right decisions. Emotionally driven decisions can have undesirable consequences. Watching the video, you may know these feelings. Explain your clients to try not to be influenced by them.


Continuous investment led to significantly higher returns in the past!

If your clients get out, they run the risk of missing the right time to get back in. Better to stay the course and take advantage of every price rise. If they stay invested they will suffer losses from price decreases, but they have the opportunity to benefit from the days with the strongest gains. Check out what happened to investors with different strategies.


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Diversification

If your client invests in a single asset class, he could have good luck or bad luck. What works well one year could perform badly the next. A combination of various asset classes produces losses less often and enhances the opportunities for returns.


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Regular payments


If your clients save from month to month and don’t need your assets right now, they have the time to make up losses.

Here are some arguments to keep saving:

Long-term price trends: Your client has a long-term investment horizon. Losses have almost always been made up in the past.

Fund savers are well placed: Fund savers buy more units when prices fall and so can get back in the black faster.

Broad diversification: The blend of asset classes can cushion individual losses.


Here are some arguments to keep saving:

Long-term price trends: Your client has a long-term investment horizon. Losses have almost always been made up in the past.

Fund savers are well placed: Fund savers buy more units when prices fall and so can get back in the black faster.

Broad diversification: The blend of asset classes can cushion individual losses.

Long-term price trends

A look at the long-term performance of the worldwide equity market. shows that markets are always fluctuating. Yet in retrospect the general long-term trend has been upwards. So, if your client has taken a long-term view, there’s no reason to get upset over temporary price declines.


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Fund savers are well placed

By investing the same amount on a regular basis your client buys fund units at various prices. When prices go up, he/she gets fewer units; when prices go down, he/she gets more units. So in a normally fluctuating market environment, your client benefits from a favorable average purchase price for your units (the so-called “cost-average effect”). Of course, timing is very important when selling your units.


Diversification

If your client invests in a single asset class, he could have good luck or bad luck. What works well one year could perform badly the next. A combination of various asset classes produces losses less often and enhances the opportunities for returns.


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Price fluctuations

  • Share prices reflect supply and demand on the markets. A strong economy and optimistic investors drive prices up. Obstacles to economic growth, such as high oil prices, high interest rates or a loss of confidence drive prices down. When market participants with different expectations and assessments come together, prices inevitably fluctuate
  • This depends on what level of risk the client has accepted when buying the fund. European regulators have classified fund risk into seven different categories. These are expressed in the Synthetic Risk Indicator (SRI). This risk and reward indicator is based on past performance data. It may not be a reliable indication of the future performance of the fund.
  • A market correction is a decline in prices after a steep rise. Such movements have various possible causes. A market correction does indeed result in losses for short-term investors, but ultimately means that market participants’ exaggerated expectations are simply removed from market valuations. For reliable long-term returns, this is a good thing.
  • “Normal” market fluctuations occur daily, as the result of shifting assessments of current market information and forecasts. A stock market crash, in contrast, is caused by one or more interlinked events, such as the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 or the 2008 collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank. Accordingly, crisis-driven price shifts are usually greater, but often overdone. This is due to the fact that actual consequences of the trigger event are hard to predict. In most cases, however, investors react very emotionally. Even so, past experience has also shown that the market generally recovers rather quickly.

 

Fund management

  • In uncertain times, the manager of an actively managed fund will try to reduce risk in his fund. Within the scope of his investment strategy he will therefore try to invest in more stable assets. The rule for long-term, successful fund managers is: strength lies in staying calm.
  • The fund manager has no influence on individual market prices. A fund consists of many different investments, whose prices are determined on the markets. However, the fund manager may change the composition of his fund within the framework of the investment guidelines. For example, if the fund is an equity fund, it can take advantage of falling prices by acquiring promising equities or increasing their positions. Of course, the same applies to the other way round. If the fund manager considers the price potential of a share is insufficient, he sells the share at the current price and in return invests in another, from his point of view, promising share. This also applies to a bond fund. If long-term interest rates rise, it is advantageous to reduce the portfolio of bonds with longer maturities, as these generally react in such a situation with stronger price discounts. On the other hand, the fund manager will prefer bonds with landing maturities when interest rates fall.
  • That depends on the fund’s investment objective, guidelines and restrictions. According to these fund managers might have the possibility to use certain financial instruments (derivatives) to partially protect the portfolio from falling prices.

 

Client communication

  • During normal market fluctuations, the most important thing is to remain calm. When anxious clients come to you, first take their concerns seriously, reassure them, and turn their attention to what is essential. Only when there are changes in excess of expected value fluctuations (i.e. volatility) should you inform you client proactively.
  • There are different possibilities, how to react in different market situations. Part 4 of this learning snack gives you some ideas. Part 3 of this snack explains how to deal with the emotional part of the client communication.
  • Investors are only human, and human beings behave more emotionally than rationally. That’s why private investors often shrug off zero interest rates in conventional investments, while fluctuations on the equity market make them nervous. The fear of losses often makes them quick to throw away opportunities for profits. They want to control what they have no control over. They focus on past certainties, which have nothing to do with the present or future. All this often leads, unfortunately, to the wrong decisions.

 

Other questions

  • Volatility is a range in which securities, interest rates, etc. fluctuate over a given period of time. It is a measure of the risk of a capital investment. The wider the fluctuation range, the riskier the investment.
  • The cost-averaging effect describes the impact of regular investments in a fund over a long period of time. When prices are low, more units can be bought; when prices are higher, fewer units can be bought. Overall, the securities are acquired at an average price. This eliminates the problem of “timing” a one-off investment. The average price is always lower than the least favourable price, but also higher than the most favourable price over the observation period. Accordingly, returns also lie between the return on a one-off investment at the most favourable entry point and the return on a one-off investment at the least favourable entry point.

This information contained herein is solely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon as a forecast, research or investment advice and is not a recommendation to adopt any investment strategy. #687166. December 2018

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