Investment returns

The Investor 25 April 2006

Shares easier than reader thinks. It’s like a red rag to a bull. A paragraph in a reader’s email started, “Without getting into the share v property argument…” But why not get into it? After all, it’s at the very heart of most New Zealanders’ thinking about long-term investment. The reader, a mortgage broker, goes on to say, “I believe it is good for people to have a dabble in shares with spare cash but use property as their main retirement plan, even if they go hard out paying off just one rental property.

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The Investor 11 April 2006

Another reason to spread your investments. I can think of three good reasons to hold lots of different shares, as opposed to one or just a few. Two reasons are obvious, but one is less so, even though it may be just as important.

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The Investor 13 December 2005

Can’t see the forest for the houses?Also: Christmas shopping. Quick question: Which of the following grew fastest in the last year: New Zealand house prices, New Zealand shares, hedged overseas shares (hedging removes the effects of foreign exchange movements), or unhedged overseas shares? Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t house prices. Bigger surprise still: house prices came last.

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