We hope this finds you safe and healthy and would like to wish you and your loved ones Happy Passover!

If you also speak Hebrew, we invite you to watch the recroding of the latest webinar we held, exactly about the topics in this review. The webinar included a review of the Israeli market in Hebrew and a review of the global markets in English.

When markets are going up strongly as they did in Q1 2019, no one asks tough questions and most investors focus on other aspects of their lives. Strong markets make our jobs as wealth managers easier. The main question being posed on a daily basis is should we sell down and take profits or remain loyal to our long-term plans and beliefs. This is a valid and serious question, which is worth the debate. Last year, January 2018 was a strong month and the rest of the year was negative, particularly February and the 4^th quarter. One has to ask the question if the gains from Q1 2019 are likely to be given up later in the year or not.

As always in these quarterly newsletters, we try to bring you relevant and interesting insights without being too technical. The topics we choose are based on real discussions with clients and we hope you will find this review interesting.

In July, Pioneer Wealth Management was awarded “Best Israeli Wealth Management Team 2016” by CFI.co[1] – a European financial magazine and website. This comes at a time when we believe we have had an excellent year for clients so far. We firmly believe our approach and strictly fee based services, without conflicts of interest, are especially appropriate for these low interest rate times.

For those of you who would like to see some of the faces of the Pioneer people, we invite you to visit our Facebook page and check out the pictures from our 30 year birthday celebration.

[1] Capital Finance International

As I am writing this review I fear that by the time you read it, it will be very much out of date, such is the pace of flow of information following the Brexit “surprise”. At this stage, it definitely seems more like political turmoil than real economic turmoil. If there is one thing I have learnt over my 17 years in the wealth management industry it is that when the market is scariest and when the newspapers are using the most sensationalist fearful headlines - that is the time to buy not sell.

In early December, I had the pleasure of attending a Wealth Management conference in Zurich with some of Europe’s largest asset and wealth managers. There were many interesting discussions for both professional and end-client as we all had one thing on our minds – how to make money in 2016?! There are plenty of issues to keep us concerned and cautious as we actively seek opportunities. It is interesting to see how the entire industry grapples with similar issues of low returns, high levels of uncertainty and volatile markets – I have elaborated more on this issue below.