Low-risk portfolio construction is overdue a fundamental review, investment experts told delegates at the Money Marketing Interactive conference, arguing that the assumptions underpinning cautious strategies for much of the post-financial-crisis era may no longer hold in an environment shaped by persistent inflation, elevated interest rates and deepening geopolitical uncertainty.
For those managing SIPPs or advising clients approaching retirement, the warning carries particular weight. The cautious, bond-heavy portfolio that preserved capital and generated income reliably for a generation is, according to panellists, no longer the straightforward safe harbour it once appeared.
Low-Risk Portfolio Construction Under Scrutiny
The critique centres on duration risk and the structural role of bonds. Albemarle Street Partners head of ASPIM and managing director Charlie Parker put it plainly: ‘Things that can appear safe can become dangerous very quickly. If you have low-risk asset allocation products with fixed duration, they don’t need the duration of their bonds, they can become very dangerous very fast.’
Parker pointed to bond markets in 2022 as the clearest recent illustration, arguing that products unable to actively manage duration experienced significantly larger drawdowns than more flexible strategies. That episode should serve as a reference point for any adviser building portfolios for clients with a five-to-ten-year horizon or shorter, where sequencing risk is most acute.
BNY Mellon notes that for much of the last three decades, the 60/40 equity-bond portfolio worked precisely because the two asset classes moved in opposite directions: equities drove growth while bonds cushioned returns, typically rallying when equities fell. That correlation assumption, which underpinned a great deal of cautious portfolio construction, broke down when inflation became the dominant macro force rather than deflation or stagnation.
The Inflation Regime Has Changed Materially
Royal London Asset Management head of multi-asset Trevor Greetham argued that the inflation backdrop has shifted materially since the pandemic, following two decades in which price growth remained relatively stable. He was direct about the implications: ‘There’s no such thing as passive in asset allocation, because a passive bond portfolio killed your low-risk investors in 2022.’
Greetham’s point on the nature of inflation is worth dwelling on for portfolio builders. He argued that inflationary shocks tend to arrive in spikes rather than as a steady upward trend, leaving traditional stock-and-bond portfolios poorly positioned to absorb them. ‘Stocks and bonds are very poorly equipped to deal with inflation spikes like that,’ he said. The remedy, in his view, includes broader diversification across commodities, inflation-linked bonds and commercial property, asset classes that can behave differently when prices surge sharply.
CG Asset Management portfolio manager Emma Moriarty added a UK-specific dimension, warning that British investors face a particular challenge: the prospect of lower growth alongside higher inflation, as structural disinflationary forces such as globalisation continue to weaken. For a client in drawdown, that combination is an especially uncomfortable one, eroding both portfolio value and purchasing power simultaneously.
Risk Management, Not Valuations, Is the Real Concern
AJ Bell head of investment solutions James Flintoft shifted the focus from market timing to portfolio construction discipline. ‘The complacency I do see out there is in terms of risk management,’ he said, suggesting advisers should question whether market-cap-weighted portfolios have become overly concentrated in US equities and large technology stocks. That concentration, largely invisible to clients invested in standard cautious or balanced funds, represents a regime risk that is difficult to manage passively.
Flintoft’s prescription was measured: active asset allocation, diversification and cost control, with the aim of positioning portfolios for regime shifts rather than trading in and out of markets. ‘Make sure that your portfolio is positioned to regime shifts,’ he said. That is a long-term structural argument, not a call to act this month.
Parker closed the session with a warning that cuts to the heart of the adviser’s duty of care: ‘That’s a much riskier thing than selling something high risk and it turns out to be high risk,’ he said, referring to the danger of treating an asset as safe after the market regime has already moved on. For clients in or near retirement, where sequence-of-returns risk is most damaging, that is a consideration that cannot be deferred.
