A breakfast seminar was held in Kooyong today, organised by Davenports Financial Solutions and Churchill Morgan Global (CMG), on the state of the financial markets, economy and the future outlook with expert views from Perpetual Funds Management and Man Investments.

The seminar was organised for the benefit of Davenports and CMG’s clients for the purpose of updating and equip our clients with knowledge on the rapidly changing state of the economy and financial markets. With the assistance of the CMG’s CEO, Anthony Kofkin, Perpetual’s Head of Investment Market Research, Brigette Leckie, was brought in to discuss the current state and future outlook of the markets which was the highlight of the event.

Brigette presented a clear and consise understanding of the cause of the credit crunch crisis, the current state of affairs and what does the future hold for the markets. Straight to the point, she pointed out that the credit crisis among banks is over, which means the credit freeze is gone and we are on track to some semblence of order in the economy although it will take some time for all those ‘disallocation of resources’ to return to normalcy.

On the sharemarkets, Brigette shares Warren Buffet’s view, “Be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy“. Warren Buffet recently bought a string of US stocks in his own account as an endorsement of his confidence in the future of the sharemarkets. Well, the very fact is that share prices are now at historic lows and at bargain valuations and could be a perfect time to buy low and sell high.

In other words this is a long term and of course, quality play. Ending her presentation Brigette advised the guests to be prudent and opt for shares of quality with strong balance sheet and market power in order to ride out of this storm.

Also present were Joseph Tobias who presented Perpetual Protected Investments Series 4, and Scott Bradley on the alternative investment platform by Man OM-IP 220 2008 by Man Investments.

Being prudent and calm is paramount, especially with the waves of volatility washing the sharemarkets at the moment. And the team at Davenports will not rest in keeping our clients informed so that they have the necessary knowledge to equip themselves to avoid stumbling over rocks along their path.