| Welcome to the October issue of the Dashboard Newsletter. Only 3 more weeks until the rugby world champions are crowned. Last time I wrote it was a few days before kick off, and it didn't take long before I received several less than flattering texts when Japan upset the Springboks. But normal service has now resumed, and the top 8 teams are ready to face off in the knock out rounds. The AB's have the opportunity to exercise some demons by putting the French to the sword, and setting up a possible semi final against the Boks. This should be fun!! Good luck to all 8 teams.
I won't spend too much time on the economic update this month because there are some exciting new and important developments with the way Select Wealth Management is going to be delivering your performance reports to you moving forward. So I would rather talk a bit more about that this month. So here is a quick-fire update on the past 30 day's economic events: The US economy continues to look robust with unemployment now at 5.1% and reducing. However, the Federal Reserve decided not to raise the interest rate last month and will review this in December. They have made clear that a rate rise is coming though, and the market has fully priced in a rise of 0.25% in the short to medium term. China's numbers still look less convincing and remain a concern. China is going through the growing pains of changing from the country that manufactured all of the world's goods cheaply, to the country that manufactures some of the world's goods well. At the same time they are also beginning to become the consumer (buyer) of some of the world's goods. This is a slow and involved process that has resulted in some short term pain, but will result in long term benefits. Closer to home, the dairy price rebounded strongly after several months of decline. The number of people moving to New Zealand (net migration) also increased to historic highs. This has had the effect of making the reserve bank of New Zealand reconsider what looked like another certain rate cut in a few weeks time. So the result of delayed rate hikes internationally and potential slowing rate cuts in New Zealand is that the NZ$ has spiked (strengthened) against most foreign trading partners. I imagine this will be a short term effect, and longer term the trend will revert back to downward pressure. In other observations this month, the UN released some population forecast data which I always find interesting. There are currently about 7.3 billion people on earth and this is expected to grow to 9.73 billion by 2050. Sadly much of this growth is in 3rd world countries where the quality of life may not be great. Despite this, the commercial reality is that many of the people that will make up this growth will need homes to live in, cars to drive and toothpaste to brush their teeth. The only way I interpret this commercially is as a massive opportunity for good businesses that offer essential services and products. How can they not grow when their client base is having millions of people added to it each year? My final interesting observation this month is the discovery of running water on Mars. Who knows where this could lead to? It might sound crazy, but then I guess the idea of sending a man to the moon would also have sounded crazy not too long ago. Things we consider to be absolutely commonplace now (think of mobile phones, the internet) seemed outlandish before, so I always try keep an open mind to what the possibilities are. Space exploration and mining could be a massive industry in the future. So after all the noise, here are the numbers for the month. Share markets have been very strong over the past month – up between 1% and 5% across the board. The only exception was Germany that was down 1.5%. This strong performance was off-set by gains of similar magnitude in the exchange rate: |
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The big development this month is with the way that Select Wealth Management is going to deliver all your reports to you in the future. With the new DIMS legislation, there are additional reporting obligations on JMIS and Aegis. This means that they have to send at least 4 reports to you each year. The printing and postage cost of this is surprisingly high (remember an A4 envelop costs $2.40 to mail these days...). So Select Wealth Management has developed a new online portal that you can use if you wish to view all your reports online instead. It is a great system that gives you immediate access to all your reports, and also stores all the historic reports in a library for your reference. You will soon be receiving an information pack about this service with a personalised "security token" that you can enable if you want to use the service. Please note that this is an "opt in" service – you will not be subscribed automatically. If you would prefer not to use the online portal, you can still continue to receive hard copies of all your reports in the mail – both options will be available. But it is a great service and there is no cost to use it, so I encourage you consider it as an option. This new development illustrates Select Wealth Management's commitment to continual improvement. It's great to see that they continue to deliver fantastic investment performance, and still have the vision to improve the service and make an effort to manage cost and waste. Finally, thank you once again to those of you that have already returned your new signed application forms for the JMIS transition. We still have a handful of clients who haven't returned their forms yet, so if that's you please remember to do this at your earliest convenience. If for some reason you have not received your form for signing yet, please contact me at your earliest convenience so that we can arrange it for you. It is very important to get these done as soon as possible. As always – if you have any questions regarding the application form or anything else, please do not hesitate to contact me – I am here to help. I look forward to catching up soon. Warm regards Dave Isaacs dave@mifinancialplanning.co.nz |
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This newsletter is intended for general distribution and does not constitute personal financial advice. Copy of my primary disclosure statement and secondary disclosure statement.