If you are frequently checking the portfolio balance, then you may see a rise in your anxiety and stress levels. Behavioural finance studies confirm that investors tend to be more cautious when they check portfolios regularly, with adverse long-term consequences for their investing goals.
The pre-retirement squeeze | Covid-19 Special Focus
As we are going to have to find a way to co-exist with the coronavirus, it will continue to change lives, goals and plans. It seems clear retirement goals and lifestyle intentions post Covid-19 may not be as expected.
Gotta be right twice | Covid-19 Special Focus
In mid-January 2020, China was announcing confirmed human to human contact of Covid-19, locking down Wuhan province and building temporary hospitals. While many investment managers carried out daily operations, some had their eye on China.
Slashed dividends | Covid-19 Special Focus
Dividend stocks are a staple of every income investor, and they can play an important role in any portfolio, regardless of age and financial circumstances. But it is very much possible that dividend investors can fall into the trap of hindsight bias if they are not careful and sufficiently diversified.
Time to rethink your retirement income | Covid-19 Special Focus
The spectre of zero and negative interest rates are looming over the New Zealand financial market and those looking for a haven can't find much relief. Last week, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) deputy governor Geoff Bascand suggested at least some bank depositors might want to put their money to use elsewhere.
How to invest during a downturn | Covid-19 Special Focus
Over the past few weeks, we have been answering lots of money and market-related questions that members of our community have asked. Not surprisingly, a lot of the questions have had to do with the market volatility and how that can, or should, affect their investments.
Lessons to learn from the current bear market | Covid-19 Special Focus
Stressful events such as the current bear market are an unpleasant reality, with many investors trying to wish away negatives results in the hope they become a distant memory, but they also provide incredibly important lessons for investors and financial advisers.
Rebalancing is your powerful friend | Covid-19 Special Focus
Periodic rebalancing is generally a good way to keep your investments on track and to prevent your portfolio from changing too drastically during volatile markets – like the one we are experiencing now with COVID-19 outbreak.
Market Falls & Recoveries | Covid-19 Special Focus
An important part of our role at Stewart Group is to give our clients the confidence that it is sensible and prudent to remain disciplined when stock markets are volatile. We think this video will hopefully add to that confidence.
Pandemic, the markets, and your money | Covid-19 Special Focus
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.
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?
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.
Closing the gap
Women need to educate themselves about how to mitigate things like illness and the loss of a partner and talk to an expert about things like estate planning, life and health insurance, investing and retirement planning. The more informed and prepared women are for these things, the better they will feel, and the more protected they will be.
Timing isn't everything
It's been quite a time for the markets this August. First the Reserve Bank cut the Official Cash Rate to a new record low of 1 per cent and last week we observed the first inversion of the US yield curve between two-year bonds and 10-year bonds since 2007.
Five Lessons from a Ponzi scheme victim
Ross Asset Management was the biggest Ponzi-scheme ever happened in NZ when it unfolded in 2012 – it is said investors had $450 million with Ross but only $10m was recovered. In reality the figure invested was closer to $110m as most of the $450m were accumulated fictious returns. About 200 have signed up to the claim so far.
Make sure you have a 'fire drill' for your investment plan
An adviser once said he did not so much have people with investment problems as he had investments with people problems. Your assumed rationality can vanish in a crisis. So why not build your human imperfections into your game plan?
Déjà vu all over again
Investment fads are nothing new. When selecting strategies for their portfolios, investors are often tempted to seek out the latest and greatest investment opportunities.
Take the rough with the smooth
A key to a successful investment experience is understanding how markets behave and developing the discipline to avoid rash decisions based on short time periods.
