...you can do both. After decades in the investment wilderness, the jury is finally in - 'ethical investing' works, and is rapidly gaining in popularity...
Grow Your Wealth & Make A Difference
Retirement: Seniors are doing it for themselves
Newcastle-based lawyer Lyn Lucas has been practicing family law for 25 years. She is also 76. Lucas studied law as a mature age student, and seven years ago created an online legal practice, Online Divorce Lawyer. This came about as she was looking to lessen the stress of practising law full time...
A Better Retirement
Today, with Australians living longer and healthier lives, the concept of retirement is much different to what it was only one generation ago. For each retiree, retirement is different.
Typically, there are four areas that need to be considered to help you better understand your retirement goals and objectives. These are...
Retirement: Life after work
Income & Dividends: The search for yield
Investing: What is an index?
Insurance: Income Protection - Stay Ready
MORE GREAT INVESTMENT CHARTS
As Warren Buffett once said: “There seems to be a perverse human characteristic that makes easy things difficult.” This has particularly been the case with investing where complexity has multiplied with new products, new ways to access various investments, tax changes and new regulations, all with social media adding to the noise. But it’s really quite simple and this can be demonstrated in charts...
Updating Your Family Trust
Grab yourself a cup of coffee for this particular article, because you're going to need one. This note focuses on the importance of staying on top your family trust deeds. It's a little lengthy but please stay with me on this if you can - and if not, just call me and I'll point you in the right direction...
Defining Enough
Do all your future plans rely on having a lot more money than you do now? If the answer is yes, it might be time to think carefully about your values so you can put together a realistic financial plan that will bring you closer to the sort of life you want.
Planning for your financial future doesn’t have to be about chasing more money. Achieving a real sense of having enough to feel comfortable and happy is more about understanding what’s important to you and then managing your finances accordingly. So just how much is enough for each one of us?
STARTING A NEW BUSINESS?
THE RIGHT FINANCIAL ADVISER: A CHECKLIST
ESTATE PLANNING: A cautionary tale...
THE GFC TEN YEARS ON
QUARTERLY HOUSING REPORT
THE SANDWICH GENERATION
Many people approaching retirement with elderly parents and adult children are feeling the pressure on their time and finances. Find out why it’s important to put your own wellbeing first.
Thanks to the twin trends of growing life expectancy and rising house prices, more and more people are finding themselves joining the ranks of the sandwich generation. Recent estimates put the number of Australians in the sandwich generation at more than 1.5 million1. That’s a lot of people juggling the responsibilities of aged care, child care and often a job too.
SUPERANNUATION STUMBLING BLOCKS
THE THREAT OF WAR: IMPLICATIONS
5 GREAT INVESTMENT CHARTS
Investing is often seen as complicated. And this has been made worse over the years by the increasing complexity in terms of investment products and choices, regulations and rules around investing, the role of the information revolution and social media in amplifying the noise around investment markets and the expanding ways available to access various investments.
But at its core, the basic principles of successful investing are simple. And one way to demonstrate that is in charts or pictures – after all, a picture tells a thousand words.
This note looks at five charts I find useful in understanding investing. Check back soon as another 5 charts are coming your way.
2016/17 Review
The past financial year turned out far better for investors than had been feared a year ago. This was despite a lengthy list of things to worry about: starting with the Brexit vote and a messy election outcome in Australia both just before the financial year started; concerns about global growth, profits and deflation a year ago; Donald Trump being elected President in the US with some predicting a debilitating global trade war as a result; various elections across Europe feared to see populists gain power; the US Federal Reserve resuming interest rate hikes; North Korea stepping up its missile tests; China moving to put the brakes on its economy amidst ever present concern about its debt levels; and messy growth in Australia along with perennial fears of a property crash and banking crisis.
Predictions of some sort of global financial crisis in 2016 were all the rage. But the last financial year provided a classic reminder to investors to turn down the noise on all the events swirling around investment markets and associated predictions of disaster, and how, when the crowd is negative, things can surprise for the better. But will returns remain reasonable? After reviewing the returns of the last financial year, this note looks at the investment outlook for the 2017-18 financial year.