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This October most New Zealanders will be glued to their device-of-choice anxiously awaiting the outcome of a pivotal event in the nation’s history.  But the rugby World Cup isn’t the only big media event scheduled for the month with the general election also expected to rival sport for one night at least.  The October 14…

InvestNow Update - August 23 When we last surveyed customers, you told us that our website is one of the main resources you use to do the research for making your investment decisions. Listening to what you told us, we have made some changes to the Fund Manager and Range of Funds pages on our…

Aristotle knew the value of early education. “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man,” the ancient Greek philosopher tweeted in the fourth century BC. Gender neutrality issues aside, the Aristotle quote echoes a timeless truism that behaviours established in youth will set the tone for life. But…

In 2019 the government formally rebranded the popular KiwiSaver ‘contribution holiday’ as ‘savings suspension’ in an attempt to make the option seem less attractive, and hopefully discourage people from taking up the option of halting their KiwiSaver contributions.   The brand twist did not make an immediate impact: whether they viewed it as getting suspended…

Kiwi consumers have a long history of getting the short end of the stick.   Perhaps it’s our small size, or the fact that we’re tucked away at the bottom of the world, but the general lack of innovation and competition in NZ has struck retail shoppers here with fewer and more expensive options compared to…

When surveyed, both new and current InvestNow customers, told us that our website was the most commonly used website for researching and managing their managed funds investment options.  Whilst we found this to be really encouraging, we also received some clear feedback on how we can improve the customer experience through enhanced content and making…

Stuff happens all the time. Stuff such as the November 2021 float of NZ-founded shoe company, Allbirds, on the US stock market. “Investors in Allbirds could have almost doubled their money,” ran the Stuff headline the following day. The Stuff article quoted then-head of US share-trading outfit, Hatch, Kristen Lunman, talking up the “exciting” Allbirds…

People pretty much have four main options when it comes to investing their money: cash, property, equities, and bonds or debt. Globally, it’s the latter – debt markets – which are the largest and deepest. And, of course, debt comes in a variety of flavours, all backed by different types of security. In New Zealand,…

Passive investment firm, Simplicity, has replaced Vanguard as its offshore assets manager in a move set to fix a well-documented tax problem that similar InvestNow funds were designed to avoid. Under the news announced last week, Simplicity will swap several Vanguard Australian unit trusts (AUTs) for some New Zealand-based portfolio investment entity funds managed by…

Short-term interest rates have gone from next to zero to 4% plus in next to no time over the last 18 months. The pace of rate hikes has been the fastest in decades even if the cruising speed remains well below historical highs. From August 2021, for instance, the Reserve Bank of NZ (RBNZ) has…

Like builders who never finish the family home, investment professionals often put their own financial affairs on the backburner while happily completing well-crafted solutions for clients. So what does the inside of a fund manager’s personal portfolio really look like? InvestNow founder, Anthony Edmonds, opens the door on his newly renovated strategy for the big…

ESG – shorthand for environmental, social and governance – has moved from the fringes of the investment universe to its gravitational centre in less than a decade. And the concept that investors should take into account a broader range of non-financial factors when assessing company valuations makes intuitive sense: many fund managers likely already incorporated…