‘Trim it’: Top adviser’s warning on market highs

Mr Cassidy leapt from fourth place last year to claim the No 1 spot of the 2025

Barron’s Top 150 Financial Advisers list ahead of Apt Wealth Partners’ Andrew Dunbar, who finished second. Mr Cassidy displaced former Morgan Stanley adviser Garth Hu who had held the title for five consecutive years.

Mr Cassidy told The Australian’s The Money Puzzle podcast that investors should sit back and consider the allocations they had made.

“If you have had a really good run, trim it,” Mr Cassidy said.

“Not everything pans out the way you imagine, and I think the key is to accumulate wealth and not make large mistakes.”

In a wide-ranging interview, the veteran adviser sharply criticised the Australian tax system as much too complex, especially superannuation taxes.

He also said passive investing – reflected in the shift by retail investors towards exchange- traded funds – might soon be challenged because investors would be more broadly exposed to a falling market.

The global sharemarket shrugged off a recent downturn following better-than-expected quarterly results from AI chipmaker Nvidia.

“Without doubt, the AI theme is going to accelerate,” Mr Cassidy said.

“Clearly Nvidia is the pinnacle stock in the sector, but on the question of whether we will have a market correction moving forward? Well, obviously on a valuation basis there is a risk of that.”

Nvidia is now the largest stock in the world valued at $US4.5 trillion ($6.95 trillion), up a monster 1300 per cent in the past five years.

A one-time accountant with Ernst and Young, Mr Cassidy worked overseas for several years before becoming a top-ranked adviser. His training as a chartered accountant still informs a conservatism that comes across as he warns against excess.

In discussing the mistakes people make in bull markets, he told a story that would make any investor sitting on big profits from AI stocks feel a little queasy.

“I remember 20-odd years ago there was a client with a mining stock, and this wasn’t an overly wealthy client,” he said.

“They held a stock which went from 20 cents to about $5. And we really strongly encouraged them to trim their $5m allocation. That was a $5m allocation inside a wider portfolio worth about $5.5m.

“They didn’t proceed with that advice. The stock managed to go back down to 20 cents. They lost a lot on that. These sort of incidents … they leave something with you over a long period of time.”

Mr Cassidy said his role was to offer holistic advice to his clients, and with several billion dollars under management it is safe to assume that he has some of Australia’s wealthiest families on the books. His minimum account size is $5m.

So what do top advisers do differently?

Mr Cassidy says the best advisers learned to “stay in their lane” and then offered so-called collaborative services on all other aspects of broader financial life.

With most Australians expecting to pay about $3500-$5000 a year for financial advice, there is a natural limit to the service that can reasonably be expected.

Adviser Jacqui Clarke said “the truth is that at this level, the service an adviser can offer is not much“.

But at Mr Cassidy’s level, it’s another universe.

These are seriously wealthy people. Keep in mind that in order to get a spot on the Australian’s Richest 250 List, you now need at least $635m.

And if those clients want something, it can be arranged.

“Sometimes we might be involved in buying property, attending auctions for them,” Mr Cassidy said.

“We’ve also dealt with trying to help younger members of their family in financial literacy, or even helping clients with travel agents. In the last year we have referred people to medical professionals for surgery because they’ve had certain ailments.

“I’ve dealt with getting psychologists involved for family issues: You know, we always say that in this business, we’re all in.”

This article first appeared in The Australian as Top adviser Mathew Cassidy says it makes sense to take profits as markets soar