Featured

To show on the front page

Agricultural investment is back in vogue

agricultural investment michaels-musings-image-by-tobias-keller-from-unsplash
Share

Agricultural investment has traditionally been seen as volatile, cyclical, capital-intensive and offering low returns. Yet in recent years this perception has changed. Today, agricultural investment is seen as offering the potential for high growth and higher long term stability. Why is this so? Agricultural investment – the new black Rich-list billionaires have splurged on agricultural…

Share

Sharemarket cycles – Is it different this time?

sharemarket-cycles-michaels-musings-are-returns-really-lower-image-by-edu-lauton-from-unsplash-chart
Share

Sharemarket cycles can be scary things. Most people know sharemarkets go up and down, and sometimes those moves can be savage. The nightly news will always highlight a large fall in market values, and news articles often highlight that “$x billion has been lost today” or some such wording. What is not so common however, is news…

Share

Negative interest rates are strange

financial planner education michaels musings image by Jilbert Ebrahimi from unsplash
Share

Should you worry about this “negative interest rates” business going on in world fixed income markets? A lot of professional managers are worried, so should we more average investing humans be worried as well?

Share

Financial Planner education

financial planner education michaels musings image by Glen Noble from unsplash
Share

Financial planner education standards have again made the news, so i thought i’d share a little insight into the world financial planners currently inhabit. Financial planner education is just one of many areas in which financial planning has evolved dramatically. Such improvements are not general knowledge in the broader community, so this post is really…

Share

Interest Rates can be tricky

michaelsmusings some people don't want to look at their super
Share

Interest rates and monetary decision making processes are complex things. Sometimes you’ve just got to close your eyes and hope it all pans out the way you want it to…

Share

Financial Health Check

financial health check just do it image by Caleb Betts from Unsplash
Share

Hands up all those who enjoy sitting down to update their finances and submit themselves to a new year financial health check? There aren’t a lot of you, are there?

OK. It’s time to stop avoiding this little financial task. Prepare yourself because I’m about to give you The-Just-Do-It Stare.

Share

Financial Planning for Holidays

financial planning for holidays image of holiday planning by Dariusz Sankowski from Unsplash
Share

What’s the point of being prudent with money if you don’t take the time to reward yourself by actually spending some of that hard-earned cash? As a financial planner, i have seen heart-wrenching examples of people doing everything they can to master their financial position, only to see ill health, family circumstances or an early…

Share

Higher investment returns!

higher investment returns or just a mess of numbers reduced image by Mickey ONeil from Unsplash
Share

An interpretation of the language surrounding higher investment returns (or lower) and forecasts for those returns.Higher investment returns – or lower? From a financial adviser’s point of view, discussion on investment returns can be a fun diversion from the day-to-day paperwork and calculations, so here’s my attempt at putting together a layman’s interpretation of some…

Share

2016 Budget Superannuation

2016 Budget Superannuation is it fair image by Joshua Earle via Unsplash
Share

Are the 2016 Budget Superannuation changes fair? Here’s Michael’s interpretation of some of the more contentious issues.“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” – John F Kennedy’s powerful call for Americans to put aside self-interest, and strive to build a better nation. This is…

Share

Oil prices

when prices go crazy image source littlegatepublishing.com PRNewsFoto/Frost Sullivan
Share

It seems to me that commentary on oil prices has reached epic meme proportions, so it tickles my sense of cynical irony to put finger to keyboard with a post on oil prices. My primary motivation, apart from simple glee at joining the lemming herd decrying the collapse of oil prices, is to add a financial planner…

Share