Forward-looking assumptions

Much of what we do as financial planners involves forward-looking assumptions around things such as inflation, the economy, and financial market returns. One might question how, as planners, we can have any real confidence in making forward projections in the face of high uncertainty, particularly the current environment. There are a number of things that enable us to have this confidence: a) over 150 years of historic data, b) proven history that over the millenia, we have survived and gone on to prosper from other highly disruptive events, c) we can actively mitigate risk through portfolio diversification. Despite the current problems we are facing including COVID and civil unrest, history has shown there is every reason to believe things will get better. Historic trend analysis combined with reasonable probabilistic assessments of the future allow us as planners to have a fairly high degree of confidence in making planning and investment recommendations to our clients.