A chat with the FMA / Fees, Performance, and Risk / Ep 154
Fees, performance and risk – all relevant for investors, and fund managers, to keep front and centre. Today, I’m speaking with Paul Gregory from the Financial Markets Authority.
Investing can seem a bit daunting, but you know that in order to preserve the value of what you’re able to save, you need to invest – if not for the simple reason that if you don’t, the currency you’re stashing away, will lose purchasing power over time due to inflation.
As most of us focus on the how and the what when it comes to investing, it’s important to understand the nature of risk as you move further away from savings accounts, debt reduction, and term deposits as your lower risk, mainstay investments of yesterday. Investing can quickly become a bit more involved, and in order to make the most of it, you need to understand some of the language that goes along with this territory.
Now depending on where you’re at with your investing journey, you’ll likely be involved with some sort of managed fund. All a managed fund is, like KiwiSaver, is simply a pool of money that you contribute to, along with other investors, that get’s invested on your behalf by the manager.
My guest in this episode is Paul Gregory from the financial markets authority (the FMA)– he’s responsible for the FMA’s strategy and approach to investment management providers (aka fund managers). You could think of the FMA as a sort of referee – if you want to play the game of investing, you’ll likely appreciate the fact that some of the risks come from the volatility in the market itself, and some of the risk occurs if there’s a mismatch between the investment, and the investor. While the FMA isn’t there to help you make the best investment decisions you can make, they are there to ensure that financial advisers and fund managers are operating with a high degree of integrity – all with the goal of reducing some of the risks that exist our there.
For further information around the FMA’s activity recently:
LookSee campaign – encourages investors to make sure their KiwiSaver is on track when they receive their annual statement. We will soon relaunch this campaign
KiwiSaver retirement projections: Case Studies
KiwiSaver Tracker – compare the performance and fees of all KiwiSaver providers over 5 years
The NZ Everyday Investor is brought to you in partnership with Hatch. Hatch, let’s you become a shareholder in the world’s biggest companies and funds. We’re talking about Apple and Zoom, Vanguard and Blackrock.
So, if you’re listening in right now and have thought about investing in the US share markets, well, Hatch has given us a special offer just for you… they’ll give you a $20 NZD top-up when you make an initial deposit into your Hatch account of $100NZD or more.
Just go to https://hatch.as/NZEverydayInvestor to grab your top up.
____________________________________________________________
Like what you’ve heard?
You can really help with the success of the NZ Everyday Investor by doing the following:
1- Follow @darcyungaro on Clubhouse.
2- Write a review on Facebook, or on your favourite podcast player
3- Help support the mission of our show on Patreon by contributing here
4- To catch the live episodes, please ensure you have subscribed to us on Youtube:
5- Sign up to our newsletter here
NZ Everyday Investor is on a mission to increase financial literacy and make investing more accessible for the everyday person!
Please ensure that you act independently from any of the content provided in these episodes – it should not be considered personalised financial advice for you. This means, you should either do your own research taking on board a broad range of opinions, or ideally, consult and engage a financial adviser to provide guidance around your specific goals and objectives.
If you would like to enquire around working with Darcy (financial adviser), you can schedule in a free 15 min conversation just click on this link
Willy Woo: Bitcoin / Beyond the Moon / Ep 150-151
Episode Summary
Willy Woo, originally from Nelson, NZ, but now based in Hong Kong, is the one of the world’s best know ‘on-chain’ Bitcoin analysts.
Follow Willy on Twitter: @woonomic
I recommend Easy Crypto for any Crypto buyer based in NZ (as mentioned in this show)
The economic revolution will not be televised – partly I suppose, because it’s old news – and perhaps it wouldn’t get good ratings. In 2009 however, when Bitcoin came on the scene, you likely wouldn’t have guessed it was the start of a revolution…but in many ways, it was. For so called fanatics out there that believed in being free and living in a democratic fashion, Bitcoin was the ultimate gift – the fact that by owning it, you were casting a downvote for the status quo made it all the more satisfying.
The financial markets aren’t boring, but they sure can be complicated. Thinking about investing on your own, even taking out insurance – you quickly realise that often the complexity has been baked into the product, or there’s at least a general trend for complexity over time. Along comes Bitcoin, a finite piece of cryptography lingering on the internet, open to all who want to peer into it’s inner workings.
We’ve observed a sharp increase in accessibility to investing over the last few years, yet some would say we haven’t observed more transparency. We can all get involved yes, but there’s a growing sense that everyday investors aren’t really playing with the full deck of cards. So along comes Bitcoin, and it’s there for anyone with internet access – it appears to be less opaque than the current financial system for many people, and it’s most certainly going to appeal to the libertarians among us. Still, some would suggest Bitcoin is [still?!] a Ponzi scheme that relies on a greater fool always being around to buy it off you in the future. Much like I wouldn’t suggest investing in the S&P500 is a Ponzi scheme though, I don’t think holding this crypto-asset would be either – perhaps during the first bull market you could be forgiven for thinking this was another Tulip bubble, but not now. In fact, people who still cling to the idea that Bitcoin is a scam, the government is going to shut it down, or that there’s no intrinsic value at all, most likely don’t own any of it. For these people, the statement they’re trying to make was that if it was any good, they’d already own it. #ignorantarrogance
So today we’re, talking to Willy Woo about his background – how he came from Napier in NZ and how now, he’s considered one of the finest Bitcoin on-chain analysts in the world. The traditional financial system is perhaps fine – perhaps all will return to normal and things will carry on much as it has for decade. On the other hand, perhaps Bitcoin is the first battle by resistance fighters against our imperial overlords being fought right now in the financial realm.
The NZ Everyday Investor is brought to you in partnership with Hatch. Hatch, let’s you become a shareholder in the world’s biggest companies and funds. We’re talking about Apple and Zoom, Vanguard and Blackrock.
So, if you’re listening in right now and have thought about investing in the US share markets, well, Hatch has given us a special offer just for you… they’ll give you a $20 NZD top-up when you make an initial deposit into your Hatch account of $100NZD or more.
Just go to https://hatch.as/NZEverydayInvestor to grab your top up.
____________________________________________________________
Like what you’ve heard?
You can really help with the success of the NZ Everyday Investor by doing the following:
1- Follow @darcyungaro on Clubhouse.
2- Write a review on Facebook, or on your favourite podcast player
3- Help support the mission of our show on Patreon by contributing here
4- To catch the live episodes, please ensure you have subscribed to us on Youtube:
5- Sign up to our newsletter here
NZ Everyday Investor is on a mission to increase financial literacy and make investing more accessible for the everyday person!
Please ensure that you act independently from any of the content provided in these episodes – it should not be considered personalised financial advice for you. This means, you should either do your own research taking on board a broad range of opinions, or ideally, consult and engage a financial adviser to provide guidance around your specific goals and objectives.
If you would like to enquire around working with Darcy (financial adviser), you can schedule in a free 15 min conversation just click on this link
Passive Investing with KiwiSaver / Rupert Carlyon
While KiwiSaver isn’t complicated to operate, there’s a few moving parts so to get the most out of it, regular reviews ensure you’ll arrive at retirement well resourced.
In today’ show, Rupert Carlyon is going to walk us through how KiwiSaver works behind the scenes. Rupert is with Koura Wealth ,a KiwiSaver fund manager – a fund manager makes investment decisions on behalf of members (that’s you and me).
Average balances have been increasing gradually over time, and so we’re all trying to figure out how to optimize our returns – this is where the style of the fund manager can make a big difference. So what do we mean when we talk about management style.
Well broadly speaking, there’s two camps here – one is passive management and the other active.
Passive has a systematic and strategic approach that relies heavily on the assumption that markets are efficient, so you wont have access to information that will give you an edge, especially in the long run -the best strategy therefore is to continually invest across a diversified selection of assets such as cash, fixed interest, property and shares.
Active is a bit different – the assumption with active here are that markets are not indeed efficient, and therefore you can make tactical investing decisions in an attempt to beat the returns the market would give you on it’s own. Is one right and the other wrong? Will one style work well in a rising market compared to another in a flat market? Is the market still inefficient in some areas, but they’re just different areas than they were in the past?
So many questions – and we’re going to answer some of them today.
As mentioned, active and passive have their place, but to a large degree this depends on how you’ve constructed your investment portfolio elsewhere. The fund that you invest in via KiwiSaver, can be managed in a passive style, but that doesn’t mean that you as an investor need to have a 100% passive strategy. Perhaps you tactically respond to changing market conditions by changing the mix of your passive funds. On the other side, perhaps you passively invest through some active fund managers – you’re being strategic in how you contract out the active management you want.
The main point here, is that from an investors perspective- from your perspective, you may be the active fund manager. Perhaps you work with a financial adviser to actively manage your overall portfolio or you do it on your own – if that’s the case, do you really need to have an active KiwiSaver fund manager as well? It really does depend.
The NZ Everyday Investor is brought to you in partnership with Hatch. Hatch, let’s you become a shareholder in the world’s biggest companies and funds. We’re talking about Apple and Zoom, Vanguard and Blackrock.
So, if you’re listening in right now and have thought about investing in the US share markets, well, Hatch has given us a special offer just for you… they’ll give you a $20 NZD top-up when you make an initial deposit into your Hatch account of $100NZD or more.
Just go to https://hatch.as/NZEverydayInvestor to grab your top up.
____________________________________________________________
Like what you’ve heard?
You can really help with the success of the NZ Everyday Investor by doing the following:
1- Follow @darcyungaro on Clubhouse.
2- Write a review on Facebook, or on your favourite podcast player
3- Help support the mission of our show on Patreon by contributing here
4- To catch the live episodes, please ensure you have subscribed to us on Youtube:
5- Sign up to our newsletter here
NZ Everyday Investor is on a mission to increase financial literacy and make investing more accessible for the everyday person!
Please ensure that you act independently from any of the content provided in these episodes – it should not be considered personalised financial advice for you. This means, you should either do your own research taking on board a broad range of opinions, or ideally, consult and engage a financial adviser to provide guidance around your specific goals and objectives.
If you would like to enquire around working with Darcy (financial adviser), you can schedule in a free 15 min conversation just click on this link
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Designing Tech with Nicola Chamberlain (Zound Industries, Sweden)
Paul Spain chats with Nicola Chamberlain, a Kiwi designer who studied at Victoria University before building a global career in product design. Based in Sweden and working with audio company Zound Industries (Urbanears, Marshall, Adidas), Nicola shares about her fascinating career and the role of the designer in both tech and non-tech products (industrial design and product design).
Special thanks to organisations who support innovation and tech leadership in New Zealand by partnering with NZ Tech Podcast:
Umbrellar Connect
Vodafone NZ
HP
Spark NZ
Vocus
Gorilla Cyber Security
Datacom
Palo Alto Networks
News of The Money-World / Ep 5 / De Faults with KiwiSaver Defaults
Welcome to a short bonus series in addition to our weekly show. In partnership with Koura Wealth, your digital KiwiSaver provider, The NZ Everyday Investor is proud to present, News of The Money-World, a short, weekly show, about what’s happening in the finance world and how that affects you, the everyday Kiwi.
This week, a new list of default KiwiSaver providers where announced, complete with a new set of rules too. Are the outcomes going to be entirely positive for default KiwiSaver members though?
Essential listening for this episode is Fees, performance and risk from Monday
Got an idea for a news item for Rupert and I to discuss? Email me darcy.ungaro@nzeverydayinvestor.com.**
NZ Sales & Marketing Insider – Episode 9: Simon Coley
Hear Simon share how Karma Cola differentiates and stands out in a crowded category, and the journey of Karma Drinks: starting in New Zealand, through to Jamie Oliver’s restaurants in London, and now back out again to the world as a New Zealand export.
Will Carbon Farming get us to Net Zero? Dr Sean Weaver, Ekos
Dr Sean Weaver, CEO and founder of Ekos, is a pioneer in using carbon credits to fund indigenous forests, at scale. Which is handy, because we need them. The Climate Change Commission says we need fewer cows and many thousands of hectares of trees, exotic and native. Carbon farming appears to provide an effective mechanism to get there. Landowners plant trees on what was once pasture and sell carbon credits through the emission trading scheme or to voluntary markets. Lovely. But should we be careful what we wish for? Are we creating a perverse incentive to simply carpet New Zealand in fast growing, cheap pine forests that later become homes to pests, pose fire risks and smother native regeneration? Could carbon farming as we know it now, create a new set of problems down the line?
Also, check out the conversations going on over at Pure Advantage in their series O Tatou Ngahere (Our Forest) with Vincent as host!
Hear the Podcast Here:
Check out Sean Weaver and Ekos here
Sean Fitzpatrick Talks Golf
Former All Black captain, Sean Fitzpatrick, was back in New Zealand over the summer, so before he and his family returned to their home in the UK, he spoke with our hosts about his game, where he plays, the clubs he plays with, and, for him, the benefits of playing no matter the score.
Listen now:
News of The Money-World / Ep 4 / Investing Through Inflation
Welcome to a short bonus series in addition to our weekly show. In partnership with Koura Wealth, your digital KiwiSaver provider, The NZ Everyday Investor is proud to present, News of The Money-World, a short, weekly show, about what’s happening in the finance world and how that affects you, the everyday Kiwi.
Investing through Inflation (aka – How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb)
Inflation, the general rise in prices, often seen first in assets, then in consumer goods, and then (hopefully without too much of a wait), in wages.
Put another way, it’s when your dollars can contain less value.
It exists, it may be growing, but in today’s show, we’re talking about why you may not need to worry too much about it.
Got an idea for a news item for Rupert and I to discuss? Email me darcy.ungaro@nzeverydayinvestor.com.**
Cyber Security Leadership: Karl Wright (Datacom) and Sean Duca (Palo Alto Networks)
Paul Spain is joined by Karl Wright (CIO – Datacom) and Sean Duca (Vice President and Regional Chief Security Officer for Asia Pacific – Palo Alto Networks) to discuss Cyber Security leadership.
Special thanks to organisations who support innovation and tech leadership in New Zealand by partnering with NZ Tech Podcast:
Umbrellar Connect
Vodafone NZ
HP
Spark NZ
Vocus
Gorilla Cyber Security
Do happy cows burp funny gas? Glen Herud, Happy Cow Milk Company
This week Vincent talks to the indefatigable Glen Herud, dairy pioneer and founder of the Happy Cow Milk Company – where cows keep their young, the calves are not sent to slaughter and the milking shed is mobile, that is, it goes to cows rather than cows coming to the shed. Hard at it since 2006, Glen faced technical, political and financial hurdles to get Happy Cow launched.
Now on the cusp of its launch, Glen joins us to answer questions about methane, milk, money and starting a moovement.
Hear the Podcast Here:
What About Danny Lee?
Has New Zealand’s top professional lived up to expectations? Our hosts talk to Craig Tiriana, the Director of the Danny Lee Tournaments, who has watched Danny’s career unfold from the time he became a sensation as a teenager at Rotorua Boys High School.
Listen now: