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The Power of Compounding Interest
Albert Einstein is reputed to have said: “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.” As an investor, making your money work for you is the best way to increase your wealth. And the wealth you will...
Paying for the holiday after the fun is over
The holidays are over and you’ve had a great time. The dreaded credit card statement has arrived and you wonder how you’re going to pay it off. Happy holiday memories vanish into thin air. Unfortunately, there are no magic ways to wipe out debts - it just takes...
Super in your 30s
If you are in your thirties, chances are life revolves around children and a mortgage. As much as we love our kids, the fact is they cost quite a lot. As for the mortgage, this is the age during which repayments are generally at their highest, relative to income. And on top of that, one parent is often not working, or working only part time. Even if children aren’t a factor, career building is paramount during this decade.
How to manage sequencing risk in retirement
The order of when things happen can be your friend or your foe. If you’re a buy-and-hold investor with a long time horizon, it’s helpful not to focus too much on shorter-term total returns. Despite ups and downs from year to year, what really affects your results is...
“Markets aren’t pricing in mutation risk”
Veteran stock picker Hamish Douglas (of Magellan) sees no shortage of the risks including that covid-19 mutations could render current vaccines ineffective. The spread of the Delta variant from Australia’s most populous city to other states hasn’t worried the equity...
A Guaranteed 50% Investment Return!!
The Superannuation Co-contribution Scheme started in 2003/04 to encourage us to make personal contributions to superannuation. It was targeted at low to middle income earners and has been improved progressively since then. In 2018-19, more than 329,000 Australians...
5 Simple techniques to reduce your tax
His words might have been recorded over 200 years ago, but Benjamin Franklin’s famous uttering “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” remains as true today as it was in 1789. The one thing that has constantly changed is tax law, and...
Dollar Cost Averaging in Simple Terms
It’s easier to show how this works, than explain it. Here’s an example of investing $250 a month for 12 months into a hypothetical managed fund. Month Unit price Units Purchased 1 $3.00 83.33 2 $2.80 89.29 3 $2.50 100 4 $2.60 96.15 5 $2.10 119.05 6 $1.98 126.26 7...
Quarterly economic update April – June 2021
Employment surprise JobKeeper was a cornerstone of Australia’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. It provided millions of Australians with an ongoing income and kept thousands of businesses afloat, so when it came to an end in March expectations were that there...
Simple Money Mistakes – and how to fix them
The world is constantly dangling temptations before our eyes, and it’s never been easier to buy stuff, even if we don’t have the money. The upshot is that we are all susceptible to making some basic financial errors. Individually, these mistakes can be small. Added...
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