One of my favourite stupid sayings goes something along the lines of “…. is the new black” (insert whatever is the trend of the moment. It is ridiculous because you cannot be “new” and considered a classic both at the same time). So i am actually being terribly clever on this lovely Friday, by using…
Financial Planning Perth
General discussion on the activities of a financial planner and their clients, as well as comment on broad industry trends and practices.
Overseas charities – helping or hindering?
This note is to highlight a very clever form of helping others that recently came to my attention. Australia has a reputation for “lending a hand”, and charity is one area where many people regularly dip into their own pockets as a practical way of helping others. There are lots of aid agencies of one…
Personal Financial Advice and “Infobesity”
Just what constitutes “personal financial advice”? We here in Wealth & Security Planners have noticed a marked increase in the number of people who are looking at various forms of money market news as “advice”. It is a development that has both good and bad aspects to it. This post is a quick look at…
Long Term Investment and Averaging
Financial planners are fond of using the phrase “long term” when talking about investing. It is a concept based upon an awful lot of research and analysis of markets, investor behaviour and trends. However, the phrase quite rightly gets questioned every time there is a significant fall in markets. A lot of people worry about…
Understanding the risk return equation
Take a deep breath… we are about to enter the secret world of financial risk and return measurement… . How long is long term? How do you balance risk and return? These would be two of the shortest questions to ask yourself, yet they are also two of the hardest questions to answer. It does…
Let’s look at the global position…
i don’t know about you but at this time of the year i don’t sleep all that much. A financial planner looks at the end of the financial year as a one-way farm gate – if you don’t get all of your clients’ assets and details through that gate then there are opportunities that are irretrievably…
Understanding the Unknown
Why do markets go up? Why do markets go down? What impact do changes have on expectations for the future? Will gold move above $2,000 an ounce? Will Greece default on its sovereign debt? Will the Chinese property market bubble burst? There are so many unknowns in the world today that the arena of investment…
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble…
Come on, admit it – we all love to be able to point and say, “i told you so”. Sadly, i also am all too human. Therefore, i’m going to point to an example that is already emerging of my warning that the current changes afoot in the industry will move towards greater bias and less…
Another day, another lynch-mob
Far from me to sit on my porch playing the fiddle, while watching the business district i live in being burned to the ground. That once-magnificent newspaper, the Australian Financial Review, yesterday headlined the changes in the financial industry as some institutions move to drop commissions from their products. All very laudable steps. Follow the…
A Reminder – Speculating is NOT Investing
What is speculating? What is investing? There are different versions of this but a very good one was put forward by Peter Thornhill this morning in his delivery to those assembled for the current Perpetual update (Perpetual is a major fund manager in the Australian market, with an active, value “style”). Peter’s delivery was focussing…
