Students fail at stock picking, but learn the important lesson. The students in a university financial literacy course that I teach are lousy at picking stocks. But that doesn’t matter. Hopefully in the course of the “Stock Picking Game” they learn plenty.
Winning the KiwiSaver game under the new rules. As the dust settles on the government’s Budget announcements about KiwiSaver, how should the changes affect the way you play the KiwiSaver game?
Getting back in balance. Investment markets have been particularly turbulent in recent years. Chances are, therefore, that your spread of investments — over property, shares, bonds, term deposits and so on — has changed without your intending that to happen.
Think before switching your whole mortgage to a floating rate. In a dramatic change over the last couple of years, everyone’s moving to floating-rate mortgages. Is this a good idea?
Savings growth is far from over at 65. I’m a bit hesitant to pass on this information, for fear that some readers might get the wrong message. But here goes. Just promise me you’ll read past the first half dozen paragraphs, okay?
How not to be ripped off. There’s no denying that some fraudsters are clever. Bernie Madoff — the American now serving 150 years in prison for probably the biggest rip-off of all time — didn’t promise investors 20 or 30 per cent returns, which would have looked highly suspicious. Instead, it was a steady return of around 10.5 per cent a year. While you can’t get returns that high on a steady basis, it obviously sounded possible to thousands of Americans.
Why a dollar in the hand is worth more. The recent attempt by Bernard Whimp to buy shares in half a dozen companies cheaply — and the Securities Commission’s response to it — is a good illustration of how a dollar now is worth more than a dollar later.
When small is not beautiful. This goes against the grain, given that I think direct shareholders should own a wide range of shares. But there’s such a thing as too small a shareholding.
More reasons to get young into savings accounts. An article I read recently made me more convinced that it’s good to sign up children into savings accounts.
So much for the “can’t afford to save” excuse. Practically all New Zealanders can save. If they want to. In the wake of the release of the Savings Working Group (SWG) report on February 1, various people have been saying that many New Zealanders just can’t afford to save. I don’t buy it — or should I say save it.