New Zealand equities, bonds and property are looking like attractive investments over the coming year, a Morningstar roundtable has found.

New Zealand equities, bonds and property are looking like attractive investments over the coming year, a Morningstar roundtable has found.

The bullish outlook on the three asset classes is the result of a two day Morningstar conference which heard from some of the country’s foremost asset allocation ex-perts on the year ahead. More than 200 financial planners attended the conference which examined separate New Zealand, Australia and international asset classes.

And while the asset allocation committee likes the look of NZ investments, its outlook on Australian fixed interest and international equities is quite dour.

Member of the asset allocation committee and Rothschild chief investment officer, Jonathon Pain, says the reason the committee is bullish on NZ bonds yet bearish on Australian bonds is that it believes most of the recent bad news has already been factored into NZ bonds and not into Australia.

The committee’s pessimism on international equities stems from doubts about the US share market.

“We definitely favour Japan and Europe over the US at the moment, mostly be-cause of the Greenspan-mandated slowdown in the economy,” Pain says.

Asset class Standard benchmark(%) Tactical allocation(%)

NZ cash 5 0

NZ bonds 5 10

NZ equities 15 20

NZ property 5 10

Aust bonds 5 0

Aust equities 5 5

International bonds 20 20

International equities 40 35