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'Advisers feeling positive as consumer confidence bounces back'

'Advisers feeling positive as consumer confidence bounces back'
Rory McPherson said advisers he's spoken to are feeling positive. (Wren Sterling Wealth Management)

Advisers are seeing that clients are more willing to invest their money after a rocky year, according to Rory McPherson, chief investment officer at Wren Sterling Financial Planning.

McPherson told FT Adviser, in terms of the markets, getting this year’s elections out of the way is key for their stability. 

Wren Sterling has £6.5bn in client assets under advice and more than 100 financial planners. 

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McPherson said: “Getting all the elections out the way is key. We expect the economies to keep recovering and we are really looking forward to the continued recovery of economies.

“Earnings have been good in UK equities, it is really positive that the market is up 9 per cent or so for the year which is kind of on par with the US market but it trades at half the valuations. 

“The politics risk looks less as well, the market seems to be quite happy about a change of government.”

But McPherson reflected on the past year of UK equities which has seen huge outflows. 

He added: "It has been  pretty lonely and quite miserable to be in UK equities. Despite this there was still a decent environment within that and a lot of managers did pretty well last year."

McPherson said the economy doing well and Bank of England rate cuts expected by the end of the year increases consumer confidence. 

He said: "Advisers are feeling much more positive. Last year they were finding things tougher, because cash rates were high and people had been burned by 2022. 

"This year, they are starting to see clients wanting to put more money into the market and feeling they have more money in their pocket. 

"We see that in consumer confidence data and advisers feel that they have turned a corner."

tara.o'connor@ft.com