Currently our portfolio is down about 6.5% this month compared to the ASX 200 down 7.5%. The 60/40 benchmark is down 4.5% and the target portfolio only 3.1%. I am not too worried, as our SMSF is down only 2.4% and Unisuper 1.9%. These are the retirement accounts we are drawing a pension from. We have just over a year's worth of pension in cash in the SMSF and near two year's worth of spending in cash in our offset account.
The losses are concentrated in our non-retirement accounts, which are down 9.6%. Within those, gold is down sharply and the discount to NAV at several closed end funds has increased sharply, with Tribeca Global Resources (TGF.AX) "leading" the way.
To quote Han Solo "I have a bad feeling about this". Orban might lose the Hungarian election and not want to give up power -- so his recent comments about how SW Ukraine should belong to Hungary might be setting the stage for a war to cling to power via a 'national emergency'. Putin has apparently also given Ukraine '60 days' to accept the Russian 'peace proposal' (i.e. give up the rest of the Donetsk Oblast without a fight, and then hope Russia doesn't continue the invasion). And Putin might declare a mobilization after the May Day holiday. And Trump might either TACO (leaving the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control) or escalate (limited 'ground offensive' somewhere), Meanwhile China is already suffering disruption to oil, food and fertilizer imports, and the global economy is likely to have a recession, so the incremental cost of taking action to seize control of Taiwan sooner rather than later seems to have reduced since the US/Israel attack on Iran commenced. And the US is a bit distracted currently. Living through WWIII might not be the best way to commence retirement ;)
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the Chinese have seen that Chinese and Russian weapons really don't seem to work very well against American weapons. My thinking is that a blockade of Taiwan is more likely than an outright war. In any case, I think an immediate Chinese move is unlikely with the fuel crisis they are going to be having.
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