Stewart Group has been providing advice for over 36 years. This month we are celebrating 20 of those years spent in partnership with Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA).

If you wanted to build a home to shelter you and your family in future, you would consult experts and skilled, certified professionals to get the job done.

If there is one thing we know from history, it is that people are vulnerable to hype – be it positively or negatively geared.

I think everyone has some kind of “if I won Lotto” wishlist, regardless of if they are regular players or not. The car they would buy, the whānau they would pay off debt for, the house they would live in, the legacy they would leave.

Anyone who has ever had to get together four weeks’ rent for a bond will surely be able to spare a sympathetic wince for young renters in today’s market.

The debate around AI is ongoing. Some hail it as the hero of all tools; others as the fall of creativity and individualism as AI scrapes existing works to take its inspiration.

They say charity begins at home. For those of us who call Hawke’s Bay home, nothing could be truer when thinking over the past months.

Countdown is changing back to Woolworths. An interesting move, considering the change from Woolworths and Foodtown was only completed in 2011.

As the election approaches and attention inevitably moves towards tax (and who is promising what), I have noticed an uptick in questions about bracket creep.

In times of old, soothsayers used the entrails of animals to ‘predict’ the future. Nowadays, they use the dissected remains of failed banks.

Let's image you're now in a room with a person you’ve never met. A prospective adviser. This meeting will define the course of your future. You can ask six questions. What should they be?

We’re in a recession. What now?

It is important to establish that gross domestic product ‘GDP’ data is always released with a lag. We get these reports from Stats NZ on a quarterly basis, for the previous quarter. It is already three months old when we see it.

If you have ever heard of the hero’s journey, you’ll know that a good story is never rushed. Consider cult classics like the first Star Wars trio, in antiquity Homer’s Iliad, or modern-day feats of technology like James Cameron’s Avatar.

Zero tax and zero risk sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? Unfortunately (as a retired Waikato man recently found out the hard way), if someone is offering you this deal, it’s a scam.

There is a difference between fiscal wealth and true wealth.

When the word “wealth” crops up, it tends to be used in connection with financial wherewithal.  This isn’t wrong, per se, but it can encompass so much more.

CoreLogic, a leading property data provider in NZ, is reporting a 7-year high in property resale losses.

The aptly named CoreLogic NZ Pain & Gain Report shows that the proportion of property sold at a loss has crept up to 6.1% in the first 3 months of 2023.

Consensus on this year’s Budget? Boring, and inflationary.

Generational wisdom can be helpful as it gives context to everyday life. But when it comes to financial matters, it’s best to go with proven methodology.

There’s a well-known jibe from former PM Sir Robert Muldoon which states that New Zealanders moving to Australia would “raise the IQ in both countries.”

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same now. We’re looking at a brain drain.

Finally… Some good inflation-related news following the latest Stats NZ announcement of inflation at 6.7%. This is down from 7.2% and might signal a slowdown from the ruthless inflationary pace we’ve seen the past few years.