13 Jun 2009: Mid-June is top up time for many people in KiwiSaver. If you don’t take action in the next week or two, you could miss out on up to a thousand dollars or so from the government.... more
30 May 2009: One aspect of the recent Morningstar report on investors’ experience of managed funds - in which New Zealand came bottom out of 16 countries – got little coverage in the news media. Ironically, it’s about media coverage.... more
24 May 2009: One of the hardest things about being an investor in the past 18 months was watching the failure of almost all the experts' most cherished concepts.... more
11 May 2009: There has been a hullabaloo in the media recently about prices falls. The UK's retail price index fell by 0.3% in March, the first decline since 1960. Meanwhile the Bank of England says the consumer price index (CPI) is likely to fall to zero and stay there until 2011. ... more
2 May 2009: Sometimes it’s not so much what you don’t know but what you misunderstand that hurts you. That came through loud and clear in my recent reader survey about KiwiSaver.... more
19 Apr 2009: If you are looking for income generating securities a Buy and Hold Yield investments strategy on the share market may provide alternatives to banks. ... more
11 Apr 2009: The latest in my list of anecdotal evidence about the state of the NZ economy comes from a valuer with government agency QV. She reports that around six months ago she was commissioned by customers to produce property valuations only once or twice a day. Currently she is doing 10 to 12 a day. ... more
4 Apr 2009: The most significant of the April 1 KiwiSaver changes is the lowering of the minimum employee contribution from 4 per cent of gross pay to 2 per cent. ... more
28 Mar 2009: A few developments in recent times have started me thinking that the worst of the credit crisis may be over. That does not mean we are about to revert to the debt-fuelled boom times of recent years but it may bring us a step closer to stability. ... more
