MC Nolte in the house for Emperor Asset Management

CN&CO’s Carel Nolte did a superb job as MC at the recent Emperor Asset Management Market Review session at the Coastlands Umhlanga Hotel in Durban. The event drew around 70 Emperor investors keen to find out what’s been happening with their investments in the past few months.

The session was facilitated by Purple Group CIO and Emperor founder Tom de Lange, and Ingham Analytics director Mark Ingham, who provides regular research and analysis to Purple Group clients. (Emperor Asset Management is one of the four brands under the Purple Group umbrella, along with EasyEquities, GT247.com and GT Private Broking.)

The market review came at a particularly turbulent time in the markets, and many of the investors in the room had seen their portfolios losing 20-25% of their value in the preceding months. Tom encouraged investors to stay the course and take a long-term view.

“Our strategies are designed to deliver benchmark-beating results over the long term – and they do,” he said. “Crashes happen in all markets, and when they do it’s a terrible thing. I lost 25% of my own investment in December 2015. But if you zoom out and look at the big picture over 10 or 15 years you see that the recoveries always outstrip the market corrections.”

Mark Ingham (left) and Tom de Lange agree that now is not the time to disinvest

Tom went through the Emperor risk matrixes and timing models, assuring investors that the ups are always stronger than the downs in the long run.

Mark and Tom concur that now is not the time to disinvest.

“We’re living in uncertain times,” said Mark. “Yes, be cautious, but don’t cash in your losses now. Vasbyt! If the strategies are sound and the research is solid – as Emperor’s are – the returns will come.”

Mark encouraged investors not to be emotional.

“As an investor, one needs to understand the investment cycle – market inflation-correction-recovery – and know where one is in the cycle. This understanding helps to avoid emotional investing, which is the worst type of investing there is.”

The strongest emotional drivers that should be avoided when investing are greed and fear, but Tom added another.

“Impatience,” he said. “Investing is a long-term process. You can’t chop and change. It’s like when you’re trying to pick the fastest lane in slow traffic on a six-lane highway. As soon as you move into the lane that’s moving faster than yours, it comes to a halt and the lane you just left starts moving again.

“Our approach is to have a car or two in each lane to help you get further, faster. That’s what the Emperor strategies do. Yes, sometimes we are forced to slow down, but with a bit of patience we pick up speed again and get your investments back on track and outperforming the markets once again.”