Financial Planning, Investment & Insurance Solutions

  • Fiddling with The Future Fund

    Fiddling with The Future Fund

    The Future Fund has a new statement of expectations and new investment mandate. From the government press release: The new Investment Mandate will require the fund to consider Australia’s national priorities in its investment decisions, where possible, appropriate and consistent with strong returns. These national priorities are: Some are saying it’s just wording and won’t mean much. Others have suggested there wouldn’t be a change in wording unless the government was intending to lean on the Future Fund and direct them into the areas specified, specifically whatever their pet projects were. Plenty have opined if such investments were worthy, then…

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  • Five Years is a Long Time

    Five Years is a Long Time

    What are some signs of early, but undiagnosed memory issues? Medicine and money are probably two of the most obvious. Unfortunately, they can be lagging indicators because they may not be immediately apparent in real time. Medicine may seem to be a more short-term issue, simply due to the danger associated with a person forgetting to take their regular dosage. One example might be blood pressure. It increases because it’s no longer being controlled on a regular basis by medicine. That starts a potential ticking timebomb. It’s not unheard of for an elderly person to have a stroke, then the…

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  • The Peaceful Mind

    The Peaceful Mind

    “What do you notice about that newspaper?” He asked, as he slid the local edition across the table. “It’s very thin?” probed the questionee, wondering if they were on the mark. While that was the most noticeable thing about the newspaper, it wasn’t the response the questioner was looking for. The local newspaper had obviously been short on pages for some time now, but now it was short on something else. “There’s no ads,” responded the questioner. There wasn’t an advertisement in the whole newspaper. While there were three ad spaces taken, they were all for apps or websites that…

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  • The USA

    The USA

    As of writing the S&P 500 in the US is up nearly 15% year to date. That would be a decent annual return, but we’ve not yet notched six months in 2024 so it’s a very impressive return for half a year. Recently a poll conducted for the Guardian found 49% of Americans believed the S&P 500 was in the red this year. Still, that’s an improvement from September 2023. Back then 59% of Americans thought the S&P 500 was down for the year. At the time it was up 16% and finished up 26% for 2023. Unemployment? That’s never…

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  • Blended

    Blended

    It’s said that grey divorce is on the rise. Around a quarter of divorces are marriages that were twenty years or longer. Thirty years ago, it was around one in five marriages. And while it might not be a huge difference, there’s one thing that has changed since the 90’s. Wealth. There’s a lot more wealth in housing and superannuation than there was back in the 90’s. While a divorce earlier in life might potentially be ruinous, later in life there’s usually more of an asset base there. A house, superannuation, and other investments. In some cases, it won’t be…

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