Thoughts on money, from a Financial Planner in Perth
The Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens, today released a media statement to confirm a 0.25% rate rise to 4.25%. It will be interesting to see if we end up with the hoopla on banks passing on this rate rise in full or part or more as we did with the last one and the Westpac … Read more
Why is the Australian sharemarket down 29% from its 1 November 2007 high point when the United States S&P 500 index is only down 26%? Is the United States economy doing better over that time period than that of Australia? Looked at another way, why is Australia’s market up only 56% from its 10th March … 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
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There has been much discussion in media about the Australian banks’ reactions to the Reserve Bank’s increase in the official cash rate to 3.75% on the 2nd December. The broad thrust of comment is that Westpac is being ‘unfair’ in raising their interest rates further than the level of the official rate rise. The other … 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
Todays Australian Financial Review (p3) carries an artile titled “Super funds warned” in which Jeremy Cooper (“chairman of the federal government’s review of the $1.2 trillion superannuation industry”) suggests that Australian super funds need to increase returns and gain greater scale to increase opportunities. The example given is “Two Canadian pension funds with a combined … 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
Vanguard have released a brilliant interactive chart on their website. In this post we look at some of the results from the chart and highlight just how much fun can be had in the nerdy world of money.
“Too many people bought too much house for too many years”. That is a quote from a New York Times article, published recently. The article looked at the impact of housing on the financial crisis from the point of view of a person in the United States. From here in Australia, the “seven new rules” … Read more