Reading time: 4 minutes
“What are other advisers doing with client portfolios?”
This is one of the questions I get asked the most by financial advisers. I appreciate that many advisers are so busy with the day-to-day running of their practices, they may not get as much time to speak to their peers and share ideas as they would like.
More choice for investors and advisers following Royal Commission
Reading time: 6 minutes
The dust continues to settle following the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. As a new dawn breaks across the financial services industry I was keen to share a few of my insights into how investors, their advisers,
Sharemarket exposure with reduced risk – is it time to consider managed-risk investments?
In light of fairly significant sharemarket falls in recent weeks we’ve heard plenty of our clients query where the opportunities for portfolio construction may lie in asset classes other than equities or otherwise discuss potentially overlooked equity exposures. It seems that a number of our clients are adjusting their portfolios to more of a ‘risk-off’ environment or to potentially prepare for further market adjustments.
You get what you pay for!
As a new mother I have experienced a world entirely new to me. Other than the continuous lack of sleep, never have I been exposed to so much advertising and marketing on all the different baby products my child “absolutely, positively” needs. Gasp! In some ways, the marketers of these products appear to be suggesting that you are a bad parent if your child does not have the latest toys or designer clothes or that your little ones will be social pariahs in the sand pit at childcare without them!
Going global: investing in international markets
A question I often ask my adviser clients is how they’re investing in international markets. The answers vary, with the majority of advisers using managed funds or ETFs and some of these also investing in specific stocks on global exchanges.
Once we have discussed the how, my next question is what sort of exposures they are investing in.
ETFs – dispelling some myths
Due to the strong growth and popularity of the ETF industry, ETFs receive a large amount of media coverage. While most of this coverage is positive and constructive, there are always a few ‘rogue’ articles (often written by active fund managers) which aim to point out the “dangers” of investing in these products.
In the pursuit of efficiency
In this fast-paced world in which we live, where productivity and ‘being busy’ are a constant focus I find that there is increasingly less time in the day to finish all the tasks and activities I need to do. So, I am always on the lookout for tips and tricks that can make my life more efficient.
Fundamental Indexation – a real world example
A couple of weeks ago, our Chief Economist David Bassanese wrote a blog on the outperformance of fundamentally weighted indices and why this has occurred. I would like to take some time this week to offer another perspective and use a real world example and explanation of how fundamental indexing works and how it differs from market cap indexing,
Reflections of a technology addict
Hi, my name is Mai Platts, BetaShares Account Manager – Adviser & Institutional Business, and I am addicted to technology. It took me a while to admit it, however here it is, in this very public forum. I am not ashamed to say that if I am given a choice, you’ll find me waving my phone in the air in the manner of a possessed windmill to get a mobile signal before I resort to using the Gregory’s map which I’m sure,
Time to make ETFs a core part of your investment portfolio?
When speaking to advisers about ETFs, there seems to be a view from some advisers that ETFs are purely tools for timing current market conditions. I would like to take some time in this blog post to hopefully dispel this idea.