Brooks Wealth Update

A message from the small bedroom

At Brooks Wealth, we are a collegiate and social group that enjoy company, debate and discussion. So, it is now a new experience for us to be sitting at our sometimes-used work from home desks or other improvised areas and find ourselves working alone.

We have the technology to continue to communicate although this is often now almost entirely electronic rather than verbal. So different times but we are coping and workflow if anything has gone up the last few days!!! We are adapting fast and new ideas are appearing all over the business on how we can improve for the future and come back to the office even better placed to advise you all efficiently.

Now the dust is clearing, we have seen a quite amazing crash in Equity prices over a short period of time. Equity markets have been pummelled as panicked investors and some profiteering traders have used the deep liquidity to raise cash or sell any asset at any price. Assets that in the past have proved non-correlated have aligned with equities as they fall in value and even safe-haven assets, like gilts and gold, have not performed as strongly as expected which is often a sure sign of dislocation between price and value in parts of the markets. Equity market prices at these times reflect fear more than value and the fall from peak to trough has been faster and steeper than any other. Fear of the unknown is understandable, the reaction possibly predictable. The speed and depth of the selloff, however, has been extraordinary.

Is this the biggest opportunity in the recent past?

We are all at work, be it in the little bedroom, kitchen, shed… looking at how best to face this new reality. It might be strange times but its not the first time, we have dealt with a crash. We know burying heads in the sand or panic will not help. So, we will unemotionally look at the situation and advise you on best actions.

Some good will come from this, as it usually does. In the last crisis companies came back leaner and more focused on financial security, rather than profit at all cost. New safeguards were put in place and we recovered. This time I think we will see innovation and positive change again. Usually the crash clears the way for a sustained period of growth.

Are we out of the woods? Well that depends on when or if promises are delivered? Big political speeches help lift our spirits, but delivery of the promises will keep them high. It seems the money is there to back up the promises, but the sheer logistical challenge of supporting wages and profits through grants will not be easy to deliver.

In the end, we will, I hope, see a return to “normal” and hopefully we will all profit in the end, not just financially but as a society from this period of isolation.

Stay safe

Andy Brooks for BROOKS WEALTH