There is an old stock market adage that states that every year one should “sell in May and go away”, not reinvesting in equities until November. This saying is based on the generally held principle that stocks rise more in the 6-month period from November to April than from May to October.

I've been writing lately about the volatility in financial markets. In this week's release of our Financial Markets Handbook, the narrative is not dissimilar.

Just like Melbourne weather, the stock and financial markets can and do change really quickly. Last week I talked about investor sentiment at multi-year highs, and the fact that professional money managers were allocating to stocks at the highest level since January 2022 - all coinciding with the most recent peak in the stock market. Ironic, no?

Most of us are terrible market forecasters. Even more of us won't admit it. Ego is a massive thing in life - let alone in the financial industry. I get it, I've been trying to dissolve mine for years. I attended a meditation retreat last year, it wasn't my first and won't be my last. During one process I purged my ego from my body. It was like nothing I have ever felt before. I did it. I completely dissolved my ego - amazing. I would continue to meditate and reflect for months following only to realise that it would take someone with an ego to convince himself he's dissolved his ego. And so, the journey of personal growth continues.

We've been hearing about it for a while now. By 2024, the commercial real estate market was supposed to crash and bring down the entire economy with it. Why hasn't the commercial real estate (CRE) market crashed? Maybe it already has, but you're looking in the wrong places. You see, CRE is not just office or construction. It's much more than this - it's residential, retail, industrial, storage, hotel, mixed use, land, healthcare, and so on - you get my flow. The problem with looking at the headline market is that it encapsulates everything I have just outlined above and more.

I’m on a plane right now as I write this note. It’s Easter Sunday as we fly across the country to Western Australia. It’s the first week of the Easter school holidays. We’ve never been to WA as a family, in fact, my wife nor my two boys have been before. The only memories I have of WA are from a handful of boys trips to Scarborough Beach and Northbridge from over 15 years ago and before I was married - late mornings, late nights, lots of drinking, lots of laughs, a lot of stupidity, and those speculator sunsets. Fifteen years on, I am looking forward to creating some new memories of WA - exploration, bush walks, snorkelling, go pro worthy experiences, time with my wife and two boys, and those speculator sunsets. For those of you who know me well, you know how important time away with my family is - creating lifelong memories that Google will thankfully remind me of. Its the one piece of advice I never ever forget from my clients back when I was working in my corporate days - “spend time with your children, they grow up so fast”. So I did and I am. I quite my corporate job 8 years ago and started Baharian Wealth Management. I’ve worked harder than any day in my corporate job but I have had an enormous amount of flexibility and autonomy. I regularly talk to our clients about life and their aspirations - it’s part of what we do. Not only talking about them, we help them act on it. It would be so wrong of me, and I would be doing myself a disjustice if I too didn’t clarify my own goals and act on them. So to all of you who gave me that advice 10 years ago - thank you.