I talk briefly about CFDs or “contracts for difference” (moral of the story: steer clear!), and use CFDs to illustrate something called counterparty risk. Generally speaking, the counterparty risk with a CFD is high, and the counterparty risk with a reputable managed investment scheme is low.
The NZ news media is on a run with terrible personal finance articles. There was the recent suggestion you need $101k by age 30 to have a comfortable...
I was really pleased to see Lifetime Retirement Income develop a “guaranteed income” investment product in 2016. This was followed by Simplicity’s Guaranteed Income Fund the following year, which is available...
For most people, I recommend investing in low-cost, index-based managed funds. The principle is that you shouldn’t focus on beating the market – you should just make sure...
Note: This is a work in progress. In this post I’m trying to balance the competing aims of making a technical discussion widely accessible, while not over-simplifying the...
People often ask me what sort of return they can expect from their investments. I would love to give them a straight answer. (The bigger the number, the...
Vampires don’t exist. At least, not in the Dracula or True Blood sense. Those types of vampires are fictional creatures. But. Figuratively speaking, vampires are all around us. This...
I have some clients who have a substantial amount of money in Bonus Bonds. This has caused me to scrutinise the product in more detail. I don’t...
If you’ve engaged a financial adviser to provide investment advice, you’ll be familiar with risk tolerance questionnaires. These questionnaires ask you a series of questions that try to...
I highly recommend the recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast, “The Stupidest Thing You Can Do With Your Money”. It talks about the exorbitant fees that many investment...
