Why (and how) to keep your insurance policies during tough times

11 Christmas Budgeting Tips to Free You of Financial Stress

Should I have health insurance for my kids?

Here in Aotearoa, parents and caregivers of young children are fortunate to have access to a public health system that provides free GP care to children aged 13 and under. Anyone who’s experienced a child with a high fever, ear or throat infection, or one of the dozens of viruses that afflict young kids will know exactly how reassuring it is to be able to book a GP appointment without giving affordability a second thought.

While this ability to rely on free primary care is invaluable, it can also mean that parents and caregivers consider health insurance for Kiwi kids to be an unnecessary expense. And, for some children, it’s true that health insurance will never be needed – but for others, it’s worth its weight in gold. That’s because having health insurance for your kids means you can access specialist medical care from private healthcare providers around the country without having to wait.

Are Insurance Payouts Taxable in New Zealand?

Have you just received an insurance payout? You may be wondering if you need to pay tax on this. We're here to help. The tax implication of insurance can get a little complex in New Zealand, so we wrote this blog to help demystify the topic for you. We've covered which payouts are not taxable, which are, and some that are situation-dependent. Check it out!

Preparing for Unexpected Expenses in Retirement: Building an Emergency Fund

As you near retirement or enter this new phase of life, it becomes crucial to plan for unexpected expenses that may arise. Building an emergency fund specifically for retirement can provide peace of mind and financial security.

Stop Holiday Budget Arguments With These 9 Proven Strategies

What Do Investors Believe They Can Do But Can’t?

It is often said that a useful measure of happiness is the gap between reality and expectations. A similar approach can be adopted for identifying poor investment decisions. They tend to occur when our expectations of what we are capable of exceed the reality. This miscalibration leads us into activities and behaviours that we really should avoid.

Four Ways to Improve the Probability of a Good Retirement

Around the world, individuals are being asked to take on greater responsibility for their own retirement. In the US, for example, a combination of limited Social Security funding and a reduction in the number of defined benefit (DB) employer plans—historically, the primary retirement savings vehicle for many—is causing investors to make decisions they have never had to face about how to save for retirement.

What happened to bonds?

On November 15, 2020, the New Zealand Herald ran an article titled, ‘What negative interest rates would mean for borrowers and savers’. It said that the Central Bank was seriously considering negative interest rates as an option to stimulate the economy in the post COVID recovery. 

A mere 18 months later, the Central Bank raised the OCR to 2.5%, and indicted further upward moves were likely as outlined in its May Monetary Policy Statement. 

Market Update – 30 June 2022

Key market movements for the quarter

Shares and bonds across the board were under pressure in the second quarter of 2022, as markets priced in further increases in interest rates as well as an increased risk of recession. Amongst equities returns, which were generally poor, the MSCI World Value index significantly outperformed its Growth counterpart, although both registered double-digit declines.

Winter 2022 Economic Update

Whether you own a TV or radio, read a newspaper, or get your news online, it’s a fairly safe bet that the bulk of the economic news you are receiving at the moment sounds fairly gloomy.

Even if we could ignore the news, which is often more noisy than informative, we can’t easily ignore that the price of food, petrol and many other essential goods have been rising sharply in recent months, putting pressure on household budgets.

Timing isn’t everything

Over the course of a year, it’s not unusual for the stock market to be a topic of conversation at barbeques or other social gatherings. A neighbour or relative might ask about which investments are good at the moment. The lure of getting in at the right time or avoiding the next downturn may tempt even disciplined, long-term investors.

The reality of successfully timing markets, however, isn’t as straightforward as it sounds.

A Ten-point Plan for the Bear Market

After a long period of financial markets being treated largely as background noise by the media, news of their daily swings have been promoted back to the front pages of newspapers and the top of TV news bulletins. Naturally, investors are suddenly sitting up and taking notice. What’s causing all the volatility? More importantly, what if anything can you do about it?

Follow these 3 crucial lessons for weathering the stock market’s storm

Reacting to down markets is a good way to derail progress made toward reaching your financial goals.

Investors can always expect uncertainty. While volatile periods like the one we’re experiencing now can be intense, investors who learn to embrace uncertainty may often triumph in the long run. Reacting to down markets is a good way to derail progress made toward reaching your financial goals.

Here are three lessons to keep in mind during periods of volatility that can help you stick to your well-built plan. And if you don’t have a plan, there’s a suggestion for that too.

The two things that matter most if you own stocks

In short, markets are hard.

There has never been a time when future outcomes are guaranteed in the markets but uncertainty feels like it rises when stocks are falling.

It’s during these times of uncertainty that we look to see what others are doing to guide our own actions. This is why the herd mentality is amplified during booms and busts. The crowd becomes a safe place when things are out of the ordinary.

Losing money is a stressful experience and most people have a difficult time making intelligent decisions in times of duress.

Market Update – 31 March 2022

Key market movements for the quarter

With the prospect of US interest rate hikes and simmering tensions at the Russia/Ukraine border, there were few places for investors to hide in January, as bond yields spiked and share markets waned. Growth-tilted sectors such as information technology and consumer discretionary bore the brunt of the pain, while the energy sector generally performed strongly.

Autumn 2022 Economic Update

Headlines were dominated by the horrific war in Ukraine and the terrible humanitarian crisis continuing to unfold there. In pursuing this conflict, Vladimir Putin has surely etched his name amongst history’s most reviled.

The grave implications of the Ukraine conflict quickly fed through into increasingly volatile financial markets, with share markets declining and bond prices also generally falling over the quarter.

Inflation is here, that’s why you own shares.

An investor that owns a diversified portfolio of shares, some bonds and property, is already well positioned to withstand inflation over any reasonable time horizon.

How to stay calm when markets fall

At times like these, the human brain craves answers. “When the world turns upside down,” Jason Zweig recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “starkly simple views are reassuring. Yet it’s at those very moments that investors need to be even more skeptical about takes that smack of certainty.”