Investors

Lessons to learn from the current bear market | Covid-19 Special Focus

Stressful events such as the current bear market are an unpleasant reality, with many investors trying to wish away negatives results in the hope they become a distant memory, but they also provide incredibly important lessons for investors and financial advisers.

Watch out for those pirate funds

A few minutes into trading on the third of February 2020 the ASX released a list of companies whose securities had been suspended from trading for an unacceptable period of time. It was removing their listings from the exchange. Why? Various reasons, but most had gone bust. Many were now shells.

Defining Adviser Alpha

Alpha. In an investment sense it means how much better your returns were against a specific benchmark. For example, if you were holding an NZX 50 fund and it returned 12% while the S&P/NZX 50 portfolio index returned 10%, your alpha is 2%. This can also work in reverse. Your fund returns 8% while the index returned 10%, well you’ve got negative alpha of 2%.

Make sure you have a 'fire drill' for your investment plan

An adviser once said he did not so much have people with investment problems as he had investments with people problems. Your assumed rationality can vanish in a crisis. So why not build your human imperfections into your game plan?