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Children - Cyber - Issues - The Future?

This short film (about 14 mins) - 'Capture - Who's looking after the children?'  is a marginally tongue in cheek look at parenting and the issues with the cyber world.  Starring Jodie Whittaker (Dr Who), this is free to watch and share from Financial Times.  We strongly recommend that you take time to watch it and mull over the issues that it is posing.  Please feel free to share it with others.Watch here -  'Capture - Who's looking after the children?'...

Moneyworks helping other financial advisers learn about ethical investing

For the last 26 years Moneyworks has focussed on educating our clients about investing and financial planning and more recently ethical investing.  This year, we are working more closely with one of our industry publishers to increase the knowledge of our fellow financial advisers about ethical investing.  This includes the online publication 'Good Returns' and the hard copy magazine 'Asset'.Read more by clicking on this link. https://www.goodreturns.co.nz/article/976521222/making...

How companies tackle climate change -  active engagement in action – The Norway Oil fund

At Moneyworks, we believe that a core responsibility for fund managers is that they represent their investors by engaging with the companies that they choose to invest money into.  There will be some funds (for example defined index funds or index funds) where that is not a part of their service offering, but for the majority of funds that Moneyworks recommend, this is a core part of their job.Engagement is the first step.  This represents the fund manager continually talking with the ...

Digital Security - it isn't getting any less important

Every few years, at Moneyworks we do a digital security project with our clients, to make sure that they are taking their password protection seriously.  Our last project was encouraging our clients to make sure that they had more complicated passwords (using symbols where possible) and to turn on Two (or Multi) Factor Authentication. As more of our life becomes driven by apps and digital systems, it is becoming more and more important to have strong cyber hygiene. One method of d...

The Bank of Mum and Dad - get good experienced advice before getting yourself into a tricky situation

Buying a home – a rite of passage in New Zealand.  But as we know with the recent soaring prices of houses since Covid (even though they have abated a little as interest rates rise), it has been extremely difficult for people to get into the housing market.This is particularly so for younger people, who are starting out building their wealth and starting their families.  While KiwiSaver can help with building a deposit (which can be withdrawn to purchase a home), and through the Gran...

It’s been a doozy of a bear market – what happens next?

2022 will go down as one of those years that investors will talk about forever.  Not only did the share markets fall around the world, but bonds (or fixed interest) fell as well.The graph above shows the impact of this unusual dual fall on a balanced portfolio (this graph assumes that a balanced portfolio is 50% growth – equities and property, and 50% fixed interest and cash).If you are feeling rattled by the investment returns and values, it is because between the two asset classes falli...

Update on Climate Change Reparations from COP27

In the November newsletter, we raised the issue of Climate change and the compensation question. Surprisingly an agreement WAS made about compensation at COP27, heralded as a landmark moment in global climate politics.The agreement (adopted without a single objection) acknowledges that the emissions created by richer nations are responsible for the damage that results from the higher temperatures. As we outlined in November, New Zealand had already committed $20m and smaller pacific and isl...

2022 Rotary Cambridge Garden Festival - a great success

Since 2018, Moneyworks has been a premier sponsor of the Rotary Cambridge Garden Festival, and Carey has been the organiser and main volunteer.  Built from scratch in 2018, the 2019 Garden Festival was a great success, 2020 was Covid cancelled, and 2021 was Covid cancelled (3 weeks before the event, but still raised over $15,000 from kind donations of the ticket purchases).The 2022 Garden Festival was held on Sunday 20th November, amidst rain and thunderstorms, but the 1,500 ticket purchase...

Trauma Insurance - it does work - but definitions are vital

Trauma insurance (or critical care, serious care insurance depending on your provider) is part of the suite of personal insurances that Moneyworks recommends to our clients.  We have used trauma insurance since day one (14/02/1997) and have seen our clients receive many payouts, mainly for heart and cancer related conditions. Trauma insurance is a 'living insurance', like income protection insurance, which pays out while you are alive.  Life insurance covers expenses and provides ...

Holiday Hours and Festive Season Greetings

As usual, Moneyworks will be closing down over the Festive Season as follows: Office closes: Thursday 22nd December 2022 Office re-opens: Monday 9th January 2023 Not all of our team will be available during January, but they will have their out of office on, with instructions on how to get an answer to your query. We will be monitoring our emails every now and then if you have an urgent situation (ie an insurance claim). We wish all our clients and colleagues a fantastic festive season and safe ...

House insurance premiums are increasing - find out why

2022 renewals for house insurance premiums are the biggest increases for many years, but it is important that you have full cover in place so that you aren't facing a large shortfall if you need to claim. [For more articles on house insurance, go to our blog and search for house insurance].There are a number of reasons that premiums have increased this year, we will step through them.1. EQC (Government Earthquake Commission Levy). From 1st October 2022, the coverage has doubled from $150,00...

Collaborative Engagement - NZ Super Fund and The Christchurch Call

Achieving change in the world can be slow, and we have seen NGO's, lobbyists (for better or worse) and protestors achieve change.  But investors have the power to achieve quite a lot of change, particularly by joining together to address issues.  This is 'active engagement' which is a key part of ethical investing.Formal collaborative engagement frameworks exist under the UN PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment) and other global and national groups, but collaborative engagem...

Climate change and the compensation question

With thanks to the Financial Times Moral Money Newsletter (quotes in italics) While I can't replicate this commentary in full, (which I wish I could), there were significant points made in this article that I felt were worth sharing.  I have added my own commentary and words. The latest climate change conference is being held in Egypt (the 27th conference) as I write this.  The impact of climate change is starkly evidenced in developing countries, while the causes of climate change (c...

Building our clients portfolios

At the end of September 2022, Carey was on a panel at the RIAA (Responsible Investment Association of Australasia) conference, talking about how we build our clients portfolios.This is an area that we have spent a lot of time on over the last two years, and are continuing to develop and streamline, so we thought it would be a good idea to give you some idea of the work that we put in.We start off with our three different portfolios Base (for existing clients only who wish to stay in this no...

A sea of red?

That was the title of an email that I received from a client recently, referring to the latest fall in the sharemarkets.  They are correct, it is a sea of red, but there are some really important things to understand. Market Cycles Markets (actually pretty much everything in the world) move in cycles.  It is generally thought that the financial markets move in a 7 year cycle, with expectations that they will 'correct' every 7 years.  The last time we had a major correction was in ...

What are our emotional biases and how do they impact our investing?

Firstly, really look at the cartoon above.  While it is funny, it is also quite true and illustrates how emotions can get in the way of investing.  This cartoon can illustrate a number of biases - recency bias, fear of missing out, anchoring effect.In the last article we looked at the five main behavioural finance biases - Confirmation bias, Recency bias, Gamblers fallacy, Anchoring effect and the Herding effect.This final article in the series looks at five main emotional biases ...

Just a little bit proud... to be a B Corp

A little bit proud...  Actually... really proud and excited.Moneyworks is the first financial adviser in New Zealand to receive a B Corp Certification - recognising our commitment to doing business for good.It has taken us six months to complete the assessment process and gain certification, but that is a little misleading as it would have been very difficult if we hadn't spent the previous two years developing our systems, processes and policies to achieve our Financial Adviser Practice li...

Investing in sustainable packaging (and getting rid of those pesky plastics)

In late 2019 we went on a cycling holiday of Borneo (which was quite an adventure and fascinating) and started off staying at a resort in Kota Kinabalu.  It was a lovely resort on the beach.  Every day the beach was scoured for plastic rubbish (the beach looked out on the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand), with sacks of rubbish being collected. But within hours more rubbish accumulated.  This really brought home to us the problem of plastic pollution around the world and a...

What is an investors cognitive bias?

The classic economic theory (which relates to investing) works on the basis that 1. Everyone is rational (investors and markets) 2. Investors have perfect self control 3. Investors aren't confused by any 'emotional' factors in the way that they think and reason 4. Investors process information efficiently. This would work well if all investors and markets were robots, but it isn't true in reality.   In real life, investors are normal people with emotions, have limits on their self cont...

Why do investors do what they do?

Looking at the picture above, you might feel a ring of familiarity about your emotions if you are watching your investments on a regular basis.  This is particularly relevant when we look at what has happened in markets since the start of 2020. Markets went up and up from 1st January 2020 until mid February.  They then started drifting down and came down with a big thump in mid March - the Covid Crisis.  Usually, markets then take time to recover slowly, like in this picture....

Retirement Village living - in's and out's

We recently participated in an online webinar through our industry body, where representatives from the Retirement Villages Residents Association of New Zealand were talking about buying into and living in Retirement Villages. You can find information about them by clicking here https://www.rvranz.org.nz/. 48,000 people live in 450 Retirement Villages around New Zealand and in the next 11 years it is expected that there will be an additional 34,000 residents in 80 new villages.  There are 3...

ESG ratings businesses - how robust are they really?

Sometimes, with all the information available it be hard to remember that the ethical/sustainable investing industry is still in its infancy. We have written before in these blogs about how an analysis by Alphinity of the ESG ratings from different providers had little co-relation.  In a recently published report, the UK Financial Regulator (Financial Conduct Authority - FCA) have said that there is a 'clear rationale' for it to regulate the leading ESG ratings and data firms (MSCI, Su...

Shareholder Resolutions and Activist Investing

Resolutions are decisions about companies that need to be made by the owners (the shareholders).  While there are different laws in each country, there are generally two types of resolutions - General/Ordinary and Special (which require a higher percentage of votes from shareholders to pass).A resolution is usually proposed by the company and deal with things like voting on who will constitute the Board of Directors, and on Executive Remuneration.  However, Shareholders can propos...

How your Fund Managers vote is important

Moneyworks recommends fund managers to you.  You then entrust your money to those fund managers to exercise their votes and use what power they have to ensure that the company they are investing in is successful (both financially and ethically - if that is a feature of the fund). This article is an overview of the issues and over time we will provide more information.Gone are the days where a fund manager can turn up to a shareholders meeting to cast their vote in person.  Fund Ma...

Mindful Money Ethical Investing Awards 2022

Mindful Money has operated as a charitable trust since 2019 with the goals of increasing awareness of ethical investing in New Zealand.  They do this in a number of ways, the key at this stage is through the free to access consumer website at www.mindfulmoney.nz, and they are building on this by targetting influencers.  The Mindful Money Awards and Conference were launched in 2021 as a cornerstone platform for this education and recognise leaders in KiwiSaver, retail funds management, ...