Thoughts on money, from a Financial Planner in Perth
General discussion on the activities of a financial planner and their clients, as well as comment on broad industry trends and practices.
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
Just a quick note today… With the broohah surrounding the government announcements on legislating to remove commissions from superannuation and investment accounts there are all sorts of comments being made on the likely impacts – some more informed than others. Feedback in a number of online forums suggests that many people are happy with the … Read more
So you come to work, looking forward to a day doing the job you love, and thinking how lucky you are to deal with the people you deal with. For some reason you glance at the front page of the financial papers and these are the headlines glaring back at you. It wouldn’t hurt as … Read more
From a financial advisors’ point of view, a lot of the current debate on the value of advice is more than a little bemusing. Over many years the role of advisor has evolved from what was predominantly an insurance advice role (~40 years ago) through superannuation advisor (~30 years ago), investment advisor (~20 years ago) … Read more
I have always been “anti” online shopping when it comes to groceries. I had a lot of pre-conceived ideas on the cost, practicality and product quality of delivered groceries. In my mind I was sure that delivery would cost between $15-$20, only available between 9am-5pm (when most of us are at work) and that they would … Read more
Inflation suggests that the cost of living rises (nearly) every year. Following the impact of the Global Financial Crisis, some areas of the economy are flat, some have gone backwards and others are approaching previous high points. We are interested in how it is impacting the average person. Here is a quick poll for you … Read more
The front page of todays Australian Financial Review (AFR) includes an article titled “Unlisted assets drag down super fund returns”. In it, the returns of ‘Industry Funds’* is suggested as showing falling returns into a recovering market. This is entirely expected, and should not be a reason to argue against the ‘Industry Fund’ attraction to … Read more
My brother sent this photo yesterday. It is the view from his current workplace, in Laos. Here is my view… Sometimes the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day can stop us from seeing and thinking clearly. When considering money issues, this is the most common cause of mistakes being made. It may sound easy to … Read more
This article is an extract from a discussion on the merits of purchasing shares in Rio Tinto. It covers some of the points that would impact on such a decision. It is not exhaustive but it is a good start.