TREVORHong Kong · July 2026
Four times a year I sit down and write one of these. Not a market report — you can get those anywhere, and most of them are forgotten within the month. This is the update I'd want to receive if I were on the other side of the table: what actually happened, what it means for a real plan, and what I'd quietly suggest you do about it. Which, most quarters, is less than you'd think.
First, at Home
Atlas is growing faster than any portfolio I manage. In the space of this half-year he's gone from crawling to running everywhere, and from baby noises to trying his absolute hardest to copy every word we say — with mixed but very confident results. He has also developed a firm new principle: staying seated while eating is for other people. Watching him is its own lesson in compounding: nothing looks dramatic day to day, and then you glance at a photograph from six months ago and can't quite believe the difference.
I mention him not to be sentimental, but because he has changed how I hear my own advice. When I tell a young family that protection comes before investment, I'm no longer repeating a principle. I'm describing my own arrangements.
The Half-Year in Review
[REVIEW: Trevor — verify all facts and figures in this section before publishing.] The first six months of 2026 gave us the usual mix: stretches of calm nobody remembers and a handful of headlines everybody does. This half, one headline towered over the rest.
The war between the United States and Iran dominated the half-year. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz produced what the International Energy Agency called the largest supply disruption in the history of the oil market, and oil peaked around US$112 a barrel in April. Petrol queues and freight surcharges made it feel, briefly, like the 1970s. Then diplomacy did its slow work: a framework agreement in mid-June reopened the strait, and by the end of the month oil was back near US$70 — roughly where it started. Markets that had priced in catastrophe spent June un-pricing it.
Closer to home, the story was harder. Hong Kong's stock market had one of the weakest half-years of any major market, weighed down by property-sector strain and thin sentiment towards China, even as Japan and Korea set all-time highs a few hours' flight away. If your plan is built the way we build them — diversified globally, not concentrated in any single market — the local headlines mattered far less to your money than they did to the morning commute conversation.
The lesson of the half was old but expensive for some: the people who sold in March and April, when the war news was loudest, crystallised the scare. The people who did nothing watched most of it wash through. Stillness, again, was a strategy.
“Most of the time, the best response to markets is the one your plan already made.”
Markets in the First Half
[REVIEW: Trevor — confirm all figures against your data sources before publishing.] Despite everything above, global equities had a strong half. The S&P 500 returned roughly 10% including dividends — its best first half since 2021 — and the MSCI World index rose around 9%. Japan's Nikkei and Korea's Kospi both reached record highs. The glaring exception was on our doorstep: the Hang Seng fell about 11%, among the weakest major markets in the world, with the Hang Seng Tech index down roughly 19%. For context, the average Hong Kong MPF account still gained around 6.8% over the half — a quiet advertisement for holding the world rather than the harbour. Bonds did what bonds have been relearning to do since rates normalised: paid an income and dampened the swings, with a wobble at the height of the oil scare.
Here's the part I'd rather you remember than any number above: whatever the half-year figure was, it is six months of a plan measured in decades. I have never once, in ten years, adjusted a client's retirement date because of a single half-year. Not out of stubbornness — the arithmetic simply doesn't call for it.
How to Behave From Here
The honest answer to "what should I do about a war in the headlines?" is almost always: nothing your plan didn't already anticipate. But since "nothing" is unsatisfying, here is what nothing looks like when it's done well:
Keep your buffer honest. Six months of spending in cash isn't a return-killer; it's the thing that lets the rest of your money stay invested when the news turns loud.
Automate the boring parts. The clients who did best this half are, without exception, the ones whose contributions went in on schedule regardless of the headlines. When the discipline is automatic, you never have to summon it in a bad week.
Judge the plan, not the portfolio. A portfolio has a bad quarter. A plan asks a different question: are you still on track for the life you specified? If yes — and for nearly everyone I work with, yes — the quarter is trivia.
The Tailwinds, and How to Use Them
[REVIEW: confirm these remain the right three, and verify specifics.] Three things are genuinely working in a long-term investor's favour right now:
Cash finally pays — but that's a trap as well as a gift. Rates mean your buffer earns its keep. It also means many people are holding far more cash than any plan requires, paying for comfort with compounding. Hold what the plan says. Invest the rest.
Volatility is a feature if you're still contributing. If you're a decade or more from drawing on your money, choppy markets are letting you buy the same future at intermittent discounts. The monthly contribution you barely notice is the mechanism.
Diversification is being paid again. For a decade, owning anything beyond a handful of large American companies felt like a drag. This half told a different story: Japan and Korea at record highs, Europe outpacing expectations, and US indices increasingly concentrated in a small cluster of richly valued technology names. I'm not suggesting anyone abandon the US — only that a portfolio built to capture broader markets carries less single-story risk, at valuations that leave more room to be pleasantly surprised. If your assets are heavily concentrated in one market's fortunes, this is the half-year that explained why we diversify before you need to.
To Close
If this update raised a question — about your figures, your buffer, or whether the plan still matches the life — don't sit with it until the next one. That's precisely what review meetings are for, and mine tend to be shorter and calmer than people expect.
If we work together already: book your review whenever you're ready, and bring the awkward questions especially. If we don't yet: the Financial Discovery Session is thirty minutes, complimentary, and carries no obligation at all.
Thank you, as always, for your trust. It's not taken lightly.
Trevor Lee · Ad Meliora — towards better things, together.
[REVIEW: SJP compliance — past performance wording, no-advice disclaimer for this letter specifically.]