Inclusive Investing / Natalie Ferguson and Kristen Lunmen
Often the very thing that stops you from participating with investing, is the very thing that could make you good at it…
That’s right, perhaps your biggest weakness, is actually you’re strength
In today’s episode, Kristen and Natalie from Hatch Invest, join me to have a discussion about…
What makes women good at investing?
How to turn your weakness into a strength
The importance of finding your tribe.
Often when the word ‘inclusive’ and ‘diversity’ are thrown about, you’re mind could easily go towards thinking this is all about just women, but it’s not. There are many groups (and many individuals who don’t even fit into a group) who currently feel (and are) excluded from the world of investing.
In any given household, it’s not uncommon to find that one party is the dominating influence when it comes to making financial decisions, but that one party is not always the most competent. It’s important that there’s an equal opportunity given to all decision-makers in the family with respect to building wealth. Why? Because often the ones who currently don’t play the game are actually going to be pretty good at it when they make a start!
Hatch Invest is one of NZ’s leading online investment platforms that provides an option to buy fractions of US Shares simply and in a cost-effective way. Check them out using the following affiliate link and help support the NZ Everyday Investor Podcast.
Damien Grant on welfare, the National-Labour political duopoly, and the worst policies of the Labour Government.
This week, Max Whitehead interviews Beth Houlbrooke and Damien Grant. We discuss National’s welfare manifesto which adopts a couple of ACT ideas, but is mostly Labour-lite. The National-Labour political duopoly: what are the consequences for New Zealand and how do we break it? And, it’s been two years since Labour took office. What has been the Government’s most damaging policy?
Listen now, or Subscribe free:
ACT New Zealand
Politics in Full Sentences – Podcasts NZ
School of Practical Politics
Christopher Keys: Gibbston Valley Winery – NZ Wine Podcast 58
It’s a wide ranging and diverse conversation from Russian literature and life lessons to English cricket with some Hawkes Bay and Oregon influences. Christopher Keys is the Head Winemaker at Gibbston Valley Winery in Central Otago.
Listen to the Podcast Here:
www.gibbstonvalley.com
www.nzwinepodcast.com
www.instagram.com/nzwinepodcast
Music track featured on this podcast: ‘Kuaz’ – courtesy of Brent Page
Digital Advice – The Robots ARE Coming / Clive Fernandes
Yes, the Robots are Coming!
Clive Fernandes joins me on the podcast today to discuss where digital advice is and what the next steps are on the road to truly artificially intelligent financial advice. The digital advice we are talking about today is not just a streamlined user experience via your banks app – we’re talking about a method of delivery for unbiased, personalised advice, that can help the everyday Kiwi make better financial decisions.
When we imagine the ‘new world’, it can often be a mixed bag of excitement and also a bit of fear.
As two very wise Kiwi philosophers once said…
“It is the distant future
The year 2000
The world is quite different
Ever since the robotic uprising
Of the late nineties
There is no more unhappiness”
Flight of the Conchords
Perhaps the ‘problems’ of the future will no longer exist. Perhaps we won’t even care.
For some of us, the change is not going to happen fast enough, for others, if they knew how much the landscape has already changed they would be genuinely surprised. In the world of the robotic uprising to come, the chaos will re-arrange things in (hopefully ) a better way, but there could be some disruption along the way. Current market participants and regulators need to get up to speed in order to protect consumers and foster genuine innovation.
As with all the great technology companies of our age like the FAANG group of companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google), the primary reason why they have been such a fast success is the ability to scale their business models digitally.
Thinking about the worlds financially ‘un-reached’, who don’t have access to financial services (like even a bank account), which is around 1/3 of our population – digital currencies are levelling the playing fields. Banks no longer own the rights to operate in this space – the FIN in fintech is being replaced by the TECH in techfin. Digital will eventually eat the status quo.
In New Zealand, there are many providers who make it easy to sign up for KiwiSaver and provide a good level of general information and product advice. That’s awesome, but it’s kind of one-dimensional.
Clive is the founder of National Capital, a new firm that has a mission to reach 1 million Kiwi’s with high quality financial advice – ultimately this is advice that will help more people to build wealth that will see them through retirement.
Search for ‘The Everyday Investor’ on YouTube to watch the video content of this episode.
What’s eating business confidence?
Why is business confidence down and what effect is it having on the economy? What does a coherent, business-friendly political agenda look like? We talk with former EMA boss Kim Campbell and Deputy Leader Beth Houlbrooke. Plus, what’s ACT’s vision for the economy? We discuss a flat tax, slashing red tape, reversing the oil and gas ban, and bringing back 90-day trials.
Listen now, or Subscribe free:
ACT New Zealand
Politics in Full Sentences – Podcasts NZ
School of Practical Politics
Malcolm Rees-Francis: Rockburn Wines – NZ Wine Podcast 57
Malcolm Rees-Francis is the Winemaker at Rockburn Wines in the Central Otago. We chat about being born into a South Canterbury sheep-farming family and his studies and travels that led him to be making wine today.
Listen to the Podcast Here:
www.rockburn.co.nz
www.nzwinepodcast.com
www.instagram.com/nzwinepodcast
Music track featured on this podcast: ‘Kuaz’ – courtesy of Brent Page
Building wealth starts with a Kernel / Dean Anderson
Building wealth starts with a Kernel – Dean Anderson, founder of Kernel Wealth joins me to discuss the merits of investing through a long term lens.
Kernel, a new digital platform that provides low-cost access to investments for everyday Kiwi’s.
Dean Anderson is the founder and CEO of one of the newest online digital investment platforms now available in New Zealand – Kernel.
Here are some points from this episode worth noting:
Advice on product or advice on strategy? Reflecting on the rise of digital advice platforms, I’m struck with an emerging paradox: Digital ultimately seeks to mimic the human adviser / human advisers seek to mimic a digital experience. Are these two forces destined to dance around each other in perpetuity, or at some stage, will there be a meaningful merger of machine and human? Human financial advisers potentially still have an edge – Creativity. Trusted and true financial advisers are creative consultants. Digital advice platforms (and Kernel is one of them) that allow for the new breed (yet to truly emerge in my opinion) of financial advisers will succeed, if the integration of human and machine is done thoughtfully and at the right pace from the consumers perspective.
Keen to invest in New Zealand Commercial property? Direct commercial property investment has its place, but it is rather hungry in the area of equity required to get off the ground. If you’re an everyday Kiwi who’s looking to gain some exposure to commercial real estate, then Kernel has a fund that tracks the performance of 8 commercial property funds in NZ. Low fees, low initial upfront investment – simple.
Investing vs trading. I think a lot of investors, especially outside of property, come to the party expecting and exciting, dynamic, and labour-intensive journey. In reality, that’s what trading is – high risk, high transaction costs, and inevitably a high likelihood that you’ll converge to the average over time regardless. Why bother? Investing is different – it’s a long term move in a positive direction, which counter-intuitively does not actually require a lot of work and as a result, shouldn’t be that expensive either.
Check out what Kernel Wealth is all about here: https://kernelwealth.co.nz/.
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Coaching at the Top: On The Tee Golf NZ Podcast 13
Hosts Brendan and Tom talk with Marcus Wheelhouse, a former Number One amateur in the world and twice the winner of the New Zealand Stroke Paly Championship. After turning professional Marcus played in Europe, the United States and elsewhere in the world. Today, he is one of the country’s leading golf coaches, working out of JK’s World of Golf, and is best known worldwide as the coach of Ryan Fox, New Zealand’s Number One professional currently playing on the European PGA circuit. What’s life like for a top golf coach? Tune in to find out.
Listen now:
What on Earth Happened in the Local Body Elections?
In this episode, Act Leader David Seymour is joined by Stephen Berry to discuss what on earth happened in the local body elections. Stephen Berry ran a very popular guide to the Auckland local body elections this year and will give us his analysis of last weekend’s results.
Listen now, or Subscribe free:
ACT New Zealand
Politics in Full Sentences – Podcasts NZ
School of Practical Politics
OMGold! Rich Elliot and Alisson Oliveira
Rich Elliot and Alisson Oliveira work for a company called MyGold – they’re gold dealers.
Owning physical gold is not something that is normally recommended in the mainstream world. From an educational point of view, you may have done a degree in finance but the merits of owning physical gold are perhaps still a mystery to you – it certainly was for me. This is one of the great mysteries of building wealth. Why are some of the potentially more effective ways to build and store wealth, kept secret from the majority of people?!
Here are a few thoughts on this episode…
Is Gold a ‘hedge’?
Life insurance is a hedge. Bad stuff happens, and your family receives a lump sum of cash to offset some of the negative impacts associated with loss of life.
If you had a % of your wealth tied up in gold, would the value of this investment increase to a point where it’s effective in offsetting some of the losses held elsewhere? Sort of is the answer here. Significant increases in the value of gold occurred around the major negative economic events of 1929-33, 1969-70, 2001 and more recently this year where we’ve observed a 20-25% increase already.
Not everyone agrees that gold can be an effective hedge however, and this article contains a perspective to the contrary. Another slightly controversial take is the #dropgold campaign launched by some rather keen crypto-enthusiasts.
With what I’ve learnt over the last 6 months about gold, I’d suggest that gold will indeed shine in the next recession, but not all that shines is in fact gold.
Financial-ised gold vs Physical gold?
You can benefit from the price movement of gold and not actually have to physically hold it. If you come from a traditional paradigm where you view the amount of wealth you own in terms of currency (say, USD), holding an ETF in say GLD, may be an option to consider. Craig’s Investment Partners have a DIY KiwiSaver option where you can own this ETF in GLD for your KiwiSaver.
A purist ‘gold-bug’ however, would always prefer to hold the physical element in their hot little hands (or white gloves). Why? It seems the main reason physical is preferred over the financial, is that if you truly buy into owning gold, chances are you have a higher than average distrust for the current financial system. It makes sense when you think it through – if there was a catastrophe, you’d want to convert your contract to the physical as soon as you can. When you dig a little deeper however you learn that many of these ‘paper’ assets are in fact derivatives. They work to a point, but in an extreme situation (financial Armageddon) when everyone’s running to the vault, there’s no gold to be found. (If this area is of interest, search ‘gold market manipulation’)
It’s really easy to get lost in the weeds with this topic though (and quite fun just quietly) – I do believe however, that if you’re into building and storing wealth, this should be one of the foundations to understand first before moving forward much further.
There’s a good book I thoroughly recommend in fact, called ‘The Death of Money’ by James Rickards. Check out a wee sample of it here, but I’d really recommend this book if you want to understand how central banks work in greater detail and how gold worked(s) in the past/present/future. I’d suggest it’s written an a more ‘intermediate’ level so if that’s too technical, check out YouTube for Mike Maloney or Peter Schiff to get started.
So, how does owning physical gold help you, the everyday investor?
Based on my current understanding (keep in mind I’m still learning too!), owning physical gold should not really be a means to an end, but it could be an end unto itself.
Building wealth occurs in the plane of the present financial/monetary system, an interweb of various players operating with varying degrees of information (ie – not a level playing field). Gold and Bitcoin are anathematic to the status quo.
I love talking about anything that can help the everyday Kiwi build and store wealth. The decentralised (be your own bank) aspect of physical gold and Bitcoin appeal to me as it puts the power in the hand of the investor, not the system.
It appears to me right now, that ‘using’ the current system to generate ‘fiat’ money (currency sponsored by our central bank) is the best way to go. After all, the majority of market participants have faith that currency is money – so while that faith is strong, carry on. Nothing to see here.
What seems wise to me however, is to translate some level of wealth from fiat currency to physical gold (or Bitcoin!) if possible (that’s not advice, that’s just me sharing what I’m thinking remember!). My traditional portfolio is the engine, but the receptacle could be physical gold (a more timeless store of wealth).
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If you want to be notified of the special offers that MyGold has, be sure to subscribe to their newsletter here.
Hope you enjoyed this episode – thank you to MyGold for their support in making this episode possible.
Do identity politics threaten to silence feminism?
Politics in Full Sentences ACT Leader David Seymour is joined by Speak Up For Women spokesperson Ani O’Brien.
Massey University is standing up to backlash in the name of free speech to allow controversial Canadian feminists to speak on campus. In 2019, how did feminists become controversial and who’s doing the protesting?
Last year in the UK, feminist academics received threats of abuse from students and fellow academics, threats of being barred from campuses and talks cancelled. Lecturers are silencing their own opinions in fear of losing employment. What happened to academic freedom and civil debate and could the same thing happen here?
In fear of offending, are our own media at risk of silencing views?
Listen now, or Subscribe free:
ACT New Zealand
Politics in Full Sentences – Podcasts NZ
School of Practical Politics
Going for Green, Getting the Rainbow / Leeanna Kohn-Hardy
Going for Green, Getting the Rainbow! Is it possible when investing, to have your cake and eat it too?
When aiming for the green, the Benjamin’s, alpha, ROI etc., there’s so much more you could be achieving.
Do you care about the environment? Sure, we all do right – how far would you be willing to (beyond purchasing compostable plastic bags?). How much of a premium would you pay in your world in order to protect it for you and kids?
Do you care about society? How do you feel about the slave-trade, child labour, pay-gaps? What would you be willing to do to play your part in reducing this?
Do you care about good governance? How much research are you willing to undertake on a firm on their governance structure before you make an investment?
It’s all fine and dandy to say you care about something – often it’s a bit trickier to do something about it, especially when it costs more to do it..Particularly when no-one knows you’re doing it.
Leeanna Kohn-Hardy, founder of Finappster ( a start-up that makes it easy for you to understand how socially responsible your investments are) joins me in the studio for this latest episode.
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