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Tariffs - the most BEAUTIFUL word in the English language

We could write a lot about tariffs and the fact that the Trump administration (and his adviser Peter Navarro) have a different understanding about the impact of tariffs than pretty much all other economists and people who deal with these kinds of things.  But that would be boring, as you will have heard a lot of those discussions already.  To understand how Peter Navarro sees things, check out this podcast by the New York Times Daily - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/podcasts/t...

Benedict Lumberjack and rainforests

'Make My Money Matter' is a British charitable organisation that is raising the profile of issues that fall under the label of 'ethical investing'.  They have the ability to get famous actors to do short skits highlighting the issue. - see the video links below this blog post.The first one that we showed you was Olivia Colman as 'Oblivia Coalmine' - see the video here https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/oblivian/ or on the link belowThe latest video is Benedict Cumberbatch putting the...

Learning about climate related financial disclosures

New Zealand is a leader in the world in requiring large financial institutions, companies and fund managers to make climate financial disclosures. [Although the current Government is consulting on changing this, proposing higher thresholds of assets and revenues for disclosure, but we will still be known as the 'first'].While the climate related financial disclosure documents aren't really a key metric at this stage in how we assess our fund managers, Carey attended a one day course in early Dec...

How do do a reverse image search to block out fraudsters

Scammers and fraudsters are prolific these days - they use AI and filters to present themselves as someone else - having stolen that person's identity.Here is a quick and easy way to check that the person that you are communicating with is actually who they say they are - go ahead and test it on a friend or a foe - find their photo on line, take a screenshot and test it - click on the video below....

Trump, Tariffs, Nobel Peace Prize

On 19th February 2025, we attended our annual Portfolio Construction Summit.  This is our one day 'get the year off to a hiss and roar' conference, where there are fantastic speakers talking about what is happening in the world and more detailed information on portfolio construction.Pre-covid, we used to travel to Sydney for this conference and an associated Finology conference, but for the last 4 years, we have watched this online (a long day from 10am until 8pm, but worth it!)There were t...

Podcasts to help understand the investment environment

The world is changing continually and investments and investment strategies need to adapt to these changes.  With the significant change in US politics as the result of the 2024 US election and the rapid evolution of AI, in many areas, it is important that investors are continually updated on what is happening in the world and how this might affect investments.Your fund managers are continually monitoring, questioning and learning.  But many of our clients also want to understand more ...

Unpacking the Nasdaq Composite

The Nasdaq Composite is one of the most recognised names in the investment world, often making headlines alongside the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. But what exactly is the Nasdaq Composite, and how does it work for retail investors like us here in Aotearoa?Generally, the Nasdaq is used as short-hand to see what the technology sector is doing.  We monitor the DJIA (See January newsletter), the S&P 500 (See February Newsletter) and the Nasdaq each day to get a feel for wh...

The new Scam 'Stealing Unlocked Smartphones'

For many years now, we have all known to have a PIN to lock our smartphones so that the data (and our money) doesn't get stolen.  With modern phones, there are biometric protections - where you use your fingerprint or your facial image to lock and unlock the phone.Quite safe right!  Well yes, unless you are standing in a public place where someone can whiz past on an electric bike or scooter, snatch the phone out of your hands while you are using it, then quickly change your passwords,...

CyberSecurity from CertNZ - Robust Routers

Your router (the thing that sends you your wifi) is a potentially easy way for hackers and bots to get into your systems.  Everything from your computers, to your TV to your garage doors - if they are linked to your wifi.The information below was from cert.nz (the NZ Government cybersecurity organisation).  We strongly recommend that you skim read this and maybe at the very least, look at your password and logon details.That little box blinking away in the corner is not just your gatew...

S&P 500 index - the key indicator of market moves

Last month we wrote an article about the Dow Jones Index - the DJIA and why it isn't a reliable measure of what might be happening with your investments.  Although it has been operating since the 1800's, it only reflects 30 stocks and is 'share price weighted',  which can provide some distortions to the picture of how investments ar working.This month we are following up with some information on the more reliable S&P 500 which is the more common index that professional investors (a...

Sustainable investing snippets - thanks to Nanuk New World

In 2024 we carried out an audit of all the information that we receive from our fund managers, grading it from 'don't bother, not worth it', to 'this is fantastic, everyone has to consume this when it arrives'.One of the communications in the 'this is fantastic' category is the monthly report that we receive from Nanuk New World Fund.  This fund is in the majority of our clients portfolio's.  Nanuk invests through nine broad themes of environmental sustainability and resource efficienc...

Moneyworks 2024 Christmas Function - Puzzle Solving

A key part of our work as financial planners and ethical investments advisers is puzzle solving.  We all really enjoy solving puzzles like - how much do our clients need to have a financially comfortable retirement?  Which are the most suitable investment managers for our clients and why?  What is likely to happen to the investment environment in the short and long term?So, now that we only have three of us (plus our robot Millie who doesn't really have a good enough personality t...

Scams are big business now

In February 2025, The Economist is starting a new podcast series about a global scam that managed to scam $47 million US from the CEO of a midwest American Bank.  It requires a subscription (which we will get), but the concerning thing is that the producer has stated that scams are now a bigger international business than the drug trade.  In response to that and to our clients requests, we will start providing you with more information on scams - it is the project in our annual review ...

FIF - Overseas Income Tax Alert

Are you up-to-date with your FIF (Overseas Tax) obligations?A recent article in the financial media highlighted the low compliance rate with the Foreign Investment Fund (FIF) rules, with a tax consultant suggesting that Inland Revenue (IRD) will likely catch up with those not declaring their FIF income.The article points out the surprisingly low number of people who declared FIF income in recent years, suggesting a significant degree of non-compliance.What is FIF and why is it important?In essen...

Gradual Damage and house insurance payments

A short video from the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman clarifying that gradual damage is not usually a claim under your house insurance cover....

The Dow Jones Industrial Average - how does it work and why does that matter?

The DJIA (the Dow Jones Industrial Average) has been the 'go to' indicator of how markets operate since the 1800's for investors.  But until we read an article from Alphinity recently, we didn't realise how monitoring this index probably doesn't really help us with understanding how our investments are performing.It is generally understood that indexes are 'market weighted'.  What this means is that if the total value of an index (eg the S&P500) is US$45.84 trillion dollars, then t...

Fund Manager Profile - Stewart Investors

Each year at our Annual Review meetings with our clients, we are telling them about a different fund manager and how they work.  The goal with this project is to illustrate the different methods, processes and styles of the fund managers.  In 2023 we profiled the Pathfinder Global Responsibility Fund, which is a top down, data driven, desk based fund.This year, we profiled Stewart Investors, which are about as opposite in methodology to Pathfinder as you can get.  While Pathfinder...

More than 50,000 property investors making losses

This is the headline from an October 2024 RNZ article - 'More than 50,000 property investors making losses'. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/529846/more-than-50-000-property-investors-making-lossesWhile this may surprise you, it is old news to us.As the RNZ article states, the average loss on these 53,350 taxpayers rental properties was $9,020 pa.  This was when 75% of interest costs could be claimed as an expense (it is now 100%, but mortgage interest rates are higher).People are ...

What might a Trump Government mean for your investments?

“Trump considers the stock-market to be his measure of his job performance” This quote stuck with me from the Capital Group webinar on Friday last week.  The ‘sugar-rush’ of the markets since the US Election results were confirmed on Wednesday night New Zealand time reflects three things in particular: 1.    Delight of the markets that there is certainty about who the Government will be.  Many people were anticipating a long drawn out process of legal c...

Du Val shows us the importance of regulation and personal advice

There has been quite a bit of publicity about the Du Val group investment issues.  We have had discussions with prospective clients about Du Val and how and why we would not have recommended this investment to our clients as from our perspective there were clear signals from day one. One of our strongest adage's when deciding whether to even look at an investment is 'how are you going to make money out of the investment and 'how are you going to take money out of the inv...

Annual Fund Managers project

The diagram above shows all the things that we do behind the scenes in relation to investments for our clients.One of the unique things that we do is our annual Fund Manager Project.  We have been advised by a number of our fund managers that we are unusual for doing this project because a. This is usually only work done by research houses and b. We make a point of ‘actively engaging’ and giving back with constructive feedback for our fund managers, which is acknowledged and appreciated...

UPDATE - Sexy investment or Scam

You may recall that in January 2024, I wrote an article about an investment that a client made (deliberately choosing not to ask our advice as they knew we would say NO).Here is a link to that article https://www.moneyworks.co.nz/blog/post/113837/sexy-investment-or-an-investment-scam/.This is an update on what has happened in the last 10 months.Demands for more moneyThe client told FX Revenues that they had no more money and not to ask for any more.  The client had a bad fall just befo...

Dr Pippa's futuristic visions

One of our favourite speakers at the Portfolio Construction conferences that we attend at least annually and often twice a year is Dr Pippa Malmgren https://pippamalmgren.co.uk/index.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippa_Malmgren.Previously a special assistance to President George W. Bush on economic policy, Dr Pippa has a wide network and always amazes us with her insights.  She specialises in working with technology and start ups, that give us a vision of where the w...

Quarterly Stock Intersections

The diagram above shows all the things that we do behind the scenes in relation to investments for our clients. The quarterly stock intersections process is an important part of our due diligence and we are only able to run this process because of our inhouse data crunching robot Millie.Each quarter, all of the fund managers that we recommend are required to provide us with a report stating all of the current holdings in the fund and their % allocation.  A number of fund managers are reluct...

Leading the Charge Against Modern Slavery: A Case Study on Nike

Written by AI (Test version of Google Notebook LM).In my ongoing mission to help you invest responsibly, I often talk about modern slavery and its presence in global supply chains.As we've discussed, this complex issue requires investors like us to be vigilant and proactive. In this post, I want to share a case study from Alphinity's latest report, which highlights how a major company, Nike, is taking a leadership role in addressing modern slavery risks.Nike: Setting the Standard for Ethical Sou...