http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/ The latest Blog feeds from www.moneyworks.co.nz en-us Tue, 05 May 2026 21:34:39 +1200 Rocketspark http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/162033/maybe-this-time-is-different--part-one/ Most years since 2009, we have attended the Portfolio Construction Forum, a conference based in Sydney that we follow each year.It is one of the better investment conferences on the calendar. The quality of the speakers is consistently high, and the format forces you to think rather than just absorb a presentation.Over the years we have heard some very good calls, and some that turned out to be wrong. We have also heard the phrase ‘this time is different’ regularly, at conferences and in the... Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post162033 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/159399/what-ethical-investing-can-and-cannot-do/ This is the final post in a three-part series on evolving ethical concern.It is important to be clear about limits. Ethical investing cannot fix global politics. It cannot force cooperation between nations. It cannot stop powerful people from behaving badly.What it can do is help you draw boundaries around what you are prepared to support with your money.That means deciding which kinds of behaviour you are willing to profit from, and which you are not. It means choosing not to fund the worst abu... Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post159399 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/160348/what-does-us-exposure-really-mean-in-your-portfolio/ Over the past year, more and more people have asked some version of the same question.“How exposed am I to the US?”It’s a fair question. The US dominates global sharemarkets, US politics fills the news, and many of the companies people recognise most are American. When markets feel uncertain, it’s natural to want to know whether too much of your money is tied to one country.But in practice, that question often mixes together two very different concerns. Untangling them makes the conversa... Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post160348 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/163585/when-the-rules-turn-out-not-to-mean-very-much/ Over the last couple of years, we have been having a particular kind of conversation more often.A client will ask whether they own Palantir. Or Tesla. Or how much of their portfolio is sitting in Amazon. Sometimes it is about a specific company that has been in the news. More often it is a quieter question about what their money is actually doing while they get on with their lives.These are good questions. They are also harder to answer than people expect.In mid April the High Court delivered a ... Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:29:10 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post163585 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/157652/kiwisaver-2040-where-the-system-could-be-heading--and-what-that-means-for-you/ Over the next 15 years, KiwiSaver is likely to become a far more significant pillar of New Zealand's retirement system. Several converging trends, demographic, political, economic and technological, will reshape how people contribute, invest and ultimately draw down their savings.The biggest change already signalled is the proposed gradual rise in default contribution rates, reaching 6% each for employees and employers by 2032. This shift could double the long-term balances of today's younger me... Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post157652 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/160130/spending-is-changing-what-does-that-mean-for-your-investments/ Recently, I signed up to a spending monitoring and budgeting app for $120 a year. I did it partly out of curiosity, and partly because I wanted to test it properly before ever considering whether it might be useful for clients. What I did not expect was how quickly it pushed me into thinking more broadly about consumption, not just at a household level, but at an economy-wide level.At the same time, I have been reading more research from fund managers about how people are spending their money no... Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post160130 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/159398/when-self-enrichment-and-corruption-are-openly-defended/ This is the second post in a series looking at how ethical concern is changing. The first explored why many people have broadened their focus beyond climate alone.Over the past year, a different discomfort has started surfacing more clearly in conversations. A sense that behaviour which used to be hidden or excused is now being openly defended.Under Donald Trump, and led by the US White House, the idea that it is acceptable to use political power to make yourself richer has been brought into the... Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post159398 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/158981/why-doing-nothing-is-sometimes-the-right-financial-decision/ There’s a lot of pressure around money to do something.Change funds. Switch strategies. React to headlines. Tidy things up. Fix whatever feels uncomfortable in the moment.Doing nothing can feel lazy, or worse, irresponsible.In reality, doing nothing is often one of the hardest financial decisions to make. It requires patience, confidence, and the ability to sit with uncertainty without trying to solve it straight away.We tend to see this most clearly when markets are volatile. Prices move arou... Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post158981 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/159397/why-concern-about-climate-change-has-shifted-not-disappeared/ This is the first in a short series of three blog posts exploring how ethical concern is evolving and what that means for how people think about money.At the Mindful Money Awards in June 2025, when I was announced as Ethical Financial Adviser of the Year, I made an off-script comment in my acceptance speech. I said that many of the people I work with care deeply about showing up on climate change, but they are also tired. Not tired of caring, but tired of being told that individual effort can so... Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post159397 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/157651/kiwisavers-growing-pains-the-issues-emerging-as-the-system-reaches-adulthood/ KiwiSaver has moved from scrappy teenager to central pillar of New Zealanders’ financial lives.With nearly 3.3 million members and rapidly growing balances, it is no longer a nice extra. It is a critical part of how people get into homes, survive financial shocks, and fund their retirement.But as the system reaches adulthood, a set of structural and behavioural problems is starting to show through.One of the most visible trends is market concentration. Over time, acquisitions, mergers and defa... Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +1300 http://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/#post157651