Holm Truths Summer 2005–06
Can you get rich quick?: Only by taking big risks. Also in this issue: From the Mailbox — Spending in retirement.
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.
NZ Herald 19 November 2005
Q&As: How well do share funds perform?; Comparison of investment performances.
NZ Herald 5 November 2005
Q&As: Share funds v rental property; Income splitting by the self-employed — is it OK?
The Investor 4 October 2005
A message that goes too far — Shares beat mixtures over long term. I take exception to a recent New York Times article entitled, “The long-term lesson: It pays to diversify”. If you look hard at the numbers quoted by the writer, they show just the opposite.
The Investor 26 July 2005
Keeping financial advisers on their toes — good for the rest of us. A warning to financial advisers: You’d better give good, unbiased advice to your next new client. And the one after that. And the one after that. You never know which one might be a “mystery shopper” working undercover. If you do serve a mystery shopper, they will report on a website whether the advice you gave “is truly in the best interests of the individual client” — something that Joe and Joanne Blow often find hard to judge.
The Investor 12 July 2005
Complexity of financial products no accident. Confirmation, at last, of what we’ve suspected all along: Providers of financial products may deliberately make them sound complicated.
The Investor 28 June 2005
House prices should worry reader. I’ve just re-read an email from a reader, and it concerns me — especially in light of a recent Economist cover story. The reader put $80,000 into two rental properties six years ago, and it has turned into $255,000, “with very little effort on our part.”
NZ Herald 7 May 2005
Q&As: A letter to give a spouse who is mean with money; Where to get info on interest rates; Returns on share funds, and debt repayment.
The Investor 8 February 2005
Higher returns don’t matter for the short term: They need time to work their magic. There’s more than one reason behind the old investment message that goes like this: If you need your money in just a few years invest your savings conservatively, but if you have a longer horizon take more risk.