There is currently a lot going on: coronavirus (COVID-19) concerns, market volatility, interest rate cuts, cancelled meetings, oil supply war and the upcoming US election. In short, COVID-19 presented a new variable, one not on anyone’s radar. So what does this mean for your investments, your business and for the economy?
Pandemic fear jolts markets, emergency rate cuts | Covid-19 Special Focus
Panic is in the air. For weeks there was calm, markets have been moving upwards without a hitch and shrugged the coronavirus off with breaking little sweat, but then there is this sudden panic now. The world is watching with concern, and it is unsettling on a human level as well as from the perspective of how markets respond.
Press Coverage: Are you the lucky $25m Lotto winner?
So you're the Hawke's Bay woman who's just won a $25.1 million Powerball prize? Financial Adviser and executive director of Stewart Group, Nick Stewart, who joined the financial services industry in 1999, has warned the lucky woman away from splashing the cash on a "depreciating asset. Without a plan, millions can become thousands in no time.
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.
Millionaire’s Dilemma
It is no secret interest rates are low. Have ten grand in the bank? If you are lucky with a ‘high-interest’ account, at the end of the year, you’ll have made $200 and that’s before the taxman and inflation come calling. We’re also told there are rough waters if you’ve got a few million.
First balance and then re-balance
Balance, and finding balance. It evokes pictures of rocks stacked upon each other at the beach. It’s something of an ongoing search for time-crunched people. How they can bring balance to various aspects of their lives?
Pandemics versus market performance | Covid-19 Special Focus
Memories of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), Avian Flu and the Ebola outbreaks are being rekindled with the spread of coronavirus and global stock markets are reacting. Let us see how two global equity markets; the S&P 500 and the UK equity market performed around these three significant outbreaks.
Countdown to the new trust law
In July last year, the long-awaited Trusts Bill received Royal Assent and will come into effect in 12 months from today on 30 January 2021. The new piece of legislation will reform the current New Zealand trust law, which is 70 years old and in desperate need of an update.
Diversification a Great Luxury
New Zealanders are not keen on diversifying. NZX makes up 0.01% of the world’s share market capitalisation, but most New Zealand investor portfolios are overly weighted to the home market. In other words, a New Zealand investor with a strong home bias would have just a 7% allocation to technology, compared to approximately 16% in the global portfolios.
Returns are Random
The chart shows the variability of asset class performance on a year-by-year basis from 2010 through 2019. The best-performing asset class for each calendar year is at the top of each column. Please remember, past performance does not guarantee future results.
What Lies Beneath?
Record low-interest rates in Australia and New Zealand are tempting yield-seeking investors into products where the risks can be obscured. New products often are marketed as solid, cash-like instruments that offer regular, predictable returns. But we’ve seen this movie before.
Don’t bother trying to pick stocks
If markets do a good job of pricing securities, you should expect managers who focus on finding pricing “mistakes” to struggle. A study by Dimensional Fund Advisors confirms this principle, showing that most fund managers underperform their benchmarks. The results suggest that investors are best served by relying on market prices.
The year that wasn’t
A routine task for financial journalists at this time of year is to write a summary of the year in markets and to survey economists on their expectations for the coming year. But the truth is the market already knows all of that. The headlines, and the views of all the economists and analysts and journalists, are already reflected in today’s prices. They can make educated guesses about the outlook, but they’re still guesses.
The Decade Ahead
It’s that time of year. When everyone starts talking about what will happen next year. Banks. Brokers. Economists. Lunatic gold newsletter salesmen on YouTube. They’ve all got an opinion. The media goes on holidays while those left manning the fort get extra lazy. We’re all subjected to unfiltered astrology calls on financial markets.
Make a bold entry into 2020
This Christmas, we’ve got something for you and your loved ones (that is if you like to share!) to help promote positivity and confidence heading into 2020. We’ve created a bunch of phone wallpapers for you to download and represent some bold, cool messages in 2020.
Canny View: Super 65 (or 67?)
It may only be over 100 years ago, but life in the 1900s would be considered brutal by today’s standards. Lights in your home might be candle or gas. Fridge, freezer well they didn’t exist. Indoor plumbing? If you were lucky. Things have changed since then. In simple terms every 10 years our life expectancy has increased by 2 years.
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%.
Women can do better
The other day I read a report which says, of all the assets controlled by women, 71% is in cash – aka not invested! Upon more talking and reading I understood, most women don’t think they know enough about investing and growing their savings; therefore, women wait to start investing until they feel more comfortable with investing and taking matters into their hands.
Lifestyle comparisons pointless in debtland
Competitiveness can be good. It can drive us further. Lead us to do better things. Challenge ourselves in ways we didn’t think of. You don’t even need to compete with others. Compete against yourself. Health. Fitness. Creative skills. Projects. Financial. Anything. New goals.
Millennials need a financial plan
When young people and young families reach out to me or other financial advisers, it’s typically centered around particular financial questions, goals, or issues they need help with at that point in time. Other times, it’s a combination of all these things, as their situation has become too complex to manage by themselves.
