Risk management

Having worked in investment banking for ten years in London and Toronto, I have a deep understanding of the fundamentals of risk management. My first priority as your advisor is to identify and manage risk effectively.

Using a top-down portfolio approach, I ensure your portfolio is never too exposed to the risks I have identified — including currency, interest rate, commodity price or equity market risks — and work to maintain the appropriate balance in terms of the economy and each sector. If a portfolio were too heavily weighted in interest rate-sensitive financials, for example, we would consider shifting some of its holdings to the consumer, industrial or resource sectors to diversify and mitigate risk.

Looking at the big picture through a holistic lens, I take responsibility to ensure that your net worth is appropriately structured to avoid unnecessary exposure to volatility. I determine the amount of capital you should hold in stocks relative to fixed income, cash, commodities, or real estate, and diversify your wealth across a number of different markets, assets and regions so that a downturn in one area does not bring about loss.

I will help you to understand your returns on a risk-adjusted basis — that is, how much risk we need to undertake to produce a given return, and ensure we never take on excessive risk to generate your required yield. My clients are more interested in absolute returns (the percentage of gains their portfolio actually earns) rather than relative returns (the portfolio’s success relative to the market indices).

Once I have identified the most promising sectors, I select securities through a strong bottom-up approach, drawing upon my own expertise and Macquarie’s award-winning research to determine which individual companies in each sector represent the highest quality and profit potential.