The Bigger Picture - September 2026

A personal question for you: in all honesty, how often do you check your portfolio? 

Multiple times each day, to ensure you are being diligent? Or monthly, quarterly, or when there’s been a change in your personal circumstances? 

In reality, only one of these two distinctly different types of investors is setting themselves up for success. 

Case in point: August’s local market movements have at best been unhelpful as investment inputs. On 6 August the ASX 200 closed at a record high of 9,271. Three weeks later, it had fallen 2.5% with the banks under pressure.  

Had you been watching on a daily basis, the same portfolio that looked like vindication early in the month would have looked slightly disappointing by the end.  

The thing is, markets are noisy. And they seem to be getting noisier as the world becomes more digitally connected. 

Zooming out, this pattern is an old one.  

The S&P 500 has closed at an all-time high on just 7% of trading days since the 1950s. For the other 93% of the time the index has sat below a previous peak, on average 11% below it.  

What this means is that checking your portfolio at any random moment gives you a 93% chance of feeling poorer than you once were, in a global market that has risen decade after decade. 

As such, it may well be that the most valuable thing you can do this year is to decide, in advance and in writing, how often you will check your portfolio, and what would have to happen before you take action.  

Set your cadence, automate your contributions, switch off your notifications, and reserve your attention for the decisions that compound in the right direction; decisions like optimising your asset allocation, minimising your costs, and giving your portfolio sufficient time in the market. 

It’s time to protect your wealth and your mental health. Stop checking your portfolio so often. 

The risks nobody is watching 

One secret to not checking your portfolio so often is not being surprised by macro developments when the rest of the market is.  

So, what are the left-field risks that markets are currently complacent about? 

There are a couple worth highlighting. 

Firstly, global private credit has swollen to US$2.1 trillion, while the US default rate hit a record level of 6% in April. Moody’s estimates that distressed restructurings accounted for almost two thirds of all 2025 private credit defaults. Strip those out and the picture looks more benign. Include them and it looks concerning, and probably more realistic.  

The situation is similar in Australia. The RBA is bracing itself for rising defaults in the local private credit sector. Be ready for the potential knock-on effects such as liquidity squeezes and financial contagion. 

Secondly, there’s the potential for another unwinding of the yen carry trade. For the first time in a generation, Japanese pension funds and insurers can now earn a real return at home, without taking currency risk on US assets. The mechanism is reflexive: as Japanese yields rise, the carry trade loses its edge, investors who borrowed yen must buy it back, the yen strengthens, and that forces further unwinding. 

Neither of these risks is an argument for maintaining an enormous cash weighting, although a modest cash weighting could be useful to take advantage of future volatility.  

They do reaffirm the importance of owning assets with genuinely different drivers, and of knowing where your hidden concentrations lie. 

Where the value has migrated 

That leads me to a question we are often asked: where are the best opportunities for employing fresh capital? 

If we zoom out, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index currently trades at 10.4 times forward earnings against 18.8 times for the MSCI World, a discount of about 45% and well beyond the 25-35% gap typical of recent decades.  

That’s mainly due to the US — which now represents an incredible 72% of the MSCI World Index — becoming more expensive.  

Behind the average, a number of fast-growing emerging markets are surprisingly cheap. For example, South Korea trades near 5 times next year’s earnings while Brazil is at around 8 times.  

That helps explain why emerging markets remain one of the few categories where active managers have historically outperformed the benchmark. For higher-risk, long-term investors, it’s arguably one of the more compelling global opportunities on offer right now.  

Protection that actually protects 

On the defensive side, there’s been an instructive theme at play for some time now.  

Central banks keep buying more gold as they diversify their reserves away from the US dollar. In the second quarter they bought a record 289 tonnes, up 62% on a year earlier. As tends to be the case, investment demand has been following suit. 

As a result, gold funds and ETFs have been proving their worth as portfolio diversifiers, exhibiting genuinely low correlation versus global equities. 

In contrast, Bitcoin, once regarded as a digital form of gold, saw its correlation with global equities spike to 0.96 in April. While it has rallied hard in recent weeks, an asset that moves in lockstep with stocks during a crisis probably won’t offer real portfolio protection when you next need it. 

Themes with a clock attached 

Two structural stories round out this month’s narrative.  

Uranium is starting to rise again after a conviction-testing sell-off. TradeTech’s long-term indicator recently reached US$97 a pound, its highest in more than 18 years. Moreover, Kazatomprom recently cut its 2026 output guidance on the grounds that prices are too low. That’s extremely bullish for the sector as its rebound gathers momentum. 

Meanwhile, the baby boomers are busier than ever jet-setting around the world. Whilst this creates a structural theme worthy of attention, the most obvious beneficiaries such as Flight Centre are not necessarily capturing the upside. A diversified approach via Australian ETFs may be the most prudent strategy in this space. 

Be prepared to stay the course 

In conclusion, a long-term investment horizon with an aligned portfolio-checking frequency is a superpower that’s hard to trump. 

The numbers speak for themselves. $10,000 invested in Australian equities three decades ago was worth $132,931 by 30 June 2026, and in US shares $218,544, against $32,459 in cash. Those decades contained the Asian currency crisis, the dot-com collapse, the global financial crisis, a global pandemic and the sharpest tightening cycle in a generation. Not one of them required a daily portfolio check or reactive selling.  

All that was needed was ensuring you didn’t undermine your own investment plan.

This commentary is general information only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Market levels and forecasts referenced are as at late August 2026 and are subject to change. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Consider whether the information is appropriate for you and seek professional advice before making investment decisions.

Disclaimer: This article is prepared by Simon Turner. It is for educational purposes only. While all reasonable care has been taken by the author in the preparation of this information, the author and InvestmentMarkets (Aust) Pty. Ltd. as publisher take no responsibility for any actions taken based on information contained herein or for any errors or omissions within it. Interested parties should seek independent professional advice prior to acting on any information presented. Please note past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.