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2016 Year in Review
Read more: 2016 Year in ReviewEconomic Overview The dangers of basing investment strategies on media forecasts were highlighted dramatically in 2016 as the outcome of major world events and the market reaction to them confounded pundits. The major news event was Donald Trump’s US presidential election win. The Republican outsider defeated Democrat Hilary Clinton on a platform that tapped into voter anger at “insider” politics and the effects of globalisation. Similar sentiments also fueled the mid-year vote by Britons to leave the European Union, again a largely unheralded result that led to the resignation of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. Despite these potentially destabilising events,…
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Superannuation Contribution Changes
Read more: Superannuation Contribution ChangesWith many of the changes announced in the 2016 Federal Budget now passed by Parliament, there is an amount of certainty that you can have when approaching your Superannuation planning and the contributions you might wish to make to your Superannuation. The Government is lowering both the concessional (pre-tax) and non-concessional (after-tax) contribution limits from 1 July 2017. One of the original proposed measures which received a lot of comment and caused concern was the $500,000 lifetime non- concessional contributions (after-tax contributions) limit. This proposed measure was dropped and replaced with a $100,000 annual limit on after-tax contributions. Pre-tax contributions…
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ASIC Report Shows Pitfalls of Direct Life Insurance
Read more: ASIC Report Shows Pitfalls of Direct Life InsurancePart of being a financial advisory business involves jobs clients want to delegate or don’t want to do. Modelling financial outcomes, monitoring government legislation, compiling decades of data to formulate an investment philosophy – most recently it was reviewing ASIC’s 120-page report into Australia’s life insurance industry. It’ sounds a snooze, but it’s not when it underlines the importance of seeking advice when buying an insurance policy or making a claim – which is what ASIC’s report did. For the sake of the report “life insurance” amounted to life cover, TPD cover, trauma cover and income protection insurance and it…
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Why keeping good records is so important
Read more: Why keeping good records is so importantWhat if you inherited or would like to leave your beneficiaries shares when you pass away, do you have good record keeping? What if some shares have a long dividend reinvestment plan, takeovers, bonus offer and share purchase plan and there was no record keeping. Investors who don’t pay attention to keeping good records pay a price in the future Record keeping is simply collecting and storing paperwork and information relating to your shares. IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE COMPLICATED. Why keeping good records is important: Manage tax effectively and declare the correct income and capital gains Prepare Estate Planning documents Monitor…
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Sailing with the Tides
Read more: Sailing with the TidesEmbarking on a financial plan is like sailing around the world. The voyage won’t always go to plan and there’ll be rough seas, but those who are prepared, flexible, patient and well-advised greatly increase the odds of reaching their destinations. A mistake many inexperienced sailors make is not having a plan at all. They embark without a clear sense of their destination. And once they do decide, they often find themselves lost at sea in the wrong boat with inadequate provisions. Likewise, in planning an investment journey, you need to decide on your goal. A first step might be to…
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