Portfolios to take advantage of central banks' next moves

Back-test all you want, it’s only by running a system in real time that you can judge it. In the first month overlaying the Alpha strategic investing frameworks with a tactical asset allocation (TAA) the report card is mixed. Portfolios for all four of our risk categories (cautious, balanced, moderate risk and adventurous) made positive returns, but they have also lagged the MSCI World index of large developed market shares. 

However, when you compare our portfolios against the leading peer analysis tool – the ARC Private Client Indices – then it's clear our system has by no means been alone in its conservatism over the past month. Anecdotally, at the end of September, all of ARC’s risk bucket benchmarks (Cautious, Balanced, Steady Growth and Equity Risk) indicated lower equity holdings than our equivalents, which gives an idea of how professional investors view the market.