Smart money weekly; upcoming events, micro-investing hacks, and tips for the new financial year

Ben Nash
Hey team,
Happy Monday.
Happy Financial New Year!! It’s the start of the financial year and we’ve been reflecting on the wild year that was FY20/21. It was a bumper year for the ASX off the back of the huge COVID kick-off dip and house prices are soaring nationally. But also a very strange year with all of the uncertainty that came with a global pandemic.

Putting all of this aside now is the best time to think about what you have achieved and what your new goals are for the new year ahead and most of all, focus on what you can control. If you’re out the back of EOFY thinking about all the ways to be better prepared for next time, our advice is to get organised now. Create a spending and savings plan for the next 12 months, download those apps that track your spending and hold all your receipts, set some clear goals with your finances (always have a goal!), and check in with your adviser to make sure you’re on track and not missing any opportunities. If things have changed at your end, adjust accordingly.

Upcoming events
Before I get into the content for the week, I’m pumped to share the next round of events we’re putting on in partnership with the General Assembly. I’ll be diving deep into tax-saving strategies, cryptocurrency, how to invest smarter, money mistakes and a healthy dose of tips, tricks and hacks to help you take the smartest next step with your money.

Event schedule and links to book here:
🚀 How to cut your tax bill – Thursday 22nd July 11:30am -12:30pm AEST
🚀 Cryptocurrency Investing 101 – Thursday 12th August 11:30am -12:30pm AEST
🚀 Make More Money: Personal Investing 101 – Thursday 2nd September 11:30am-12:30pm AEST
🚀 Finding the right investment for you – Thursday 23rd September 11:30am – 12:30pm AEST

Money Hack of the week: Things to consider if you’re choosing a financial adviser
When purchasing any product or service, what’s one of the things you value most? For most people, it’s word-of-mouth and good recommendations. That’s what helped Pivot Wealth client Oliver when looking for a wealth management advisor he could trust. His advice is to ask some specific questions to weed out the experienced and skilled advisors from the rest. Listen to what questions Oliver asked and hear his thoughts on when and how you should be getting financial advice.

Share market wrap
This week saw another interesting week to kick off the financial year. With most of Australia in lockdown, it left the Australian share market soft. U.S. stock futures were about flat on Thursday as US investors gear up for the second half of the US financial year.

Key sharemarket numbers:

  • The ASX ‘All Ords’ (top 500 shares in Australia) finished the week – 0.0% higher than last Friday, on 7,587.10 points.
  • The US ‘S&P 500’ (Top 500 shares in America) finished the week 1.07% higher than last week (Friday AEDT), at 4,319.94 points.
  • The US ‘Nasdaq’ (Top 2500+ mainly tech shares in America) finished the week 0.84% higher than last week (Friday AEDT), on 14,522.38 points.
  • The Global FTSE ‘All World’ index (largest 3100 companies in the world) finished the week 0.20% higher than last week (Friday AEDT), at 7,125.16%
  • The S&P Cryptocurrency ‘Mega Cap’ Index (tracking market value of Bitcoin and Ethereum) is currently at – 5.25% for the month, down 3,482.67% from last week

Investment story of the week: IDP Education (ASX: IEL)
This week IDP Education announced its acquisition of the British Council’s Indian International English Language Testing System operations for £130 million. The company will fund the acquisition from existing cash and debt. As a result, their share price shot up over 17% in the last few days sending an extremely positive message into the market. Broadly speaking, we do like the education space as no matter what’s happening in the world, people are continuing to learn. It’s certainly not the only education stock we’ve got our eye on.

Money mistake of the week: Not making friends with your property agent.
What’s Aaron’s top tip for negotiating with property agents? Make them your friend!
Does the agent know that you’re bloody pumped to win their auction? You need to make sure they know you’re serious as their time is valuable too. Ask what you can do to make the selling process easier for them, and don’t be scared to be the first bidder. For more tips on landing your dream property, listen to my chat with Aaron.

In the News
Investing in property can be a way to accelerate your asset building and wealth creation, but to achieve the right outcomes from your property investment, it’s critical you have a solid property strategy in place before you invest. More and more Australians are fighting to get into the property market as prices skyrocket – here’s how to get your foot in the door.

Jargon Buster of the Week: Bear vs. Bull Market (via Canstar)
A bear market is typically when the stock market is in a downward trend and stock prices are decreasing. The opposite is a bull market, in which stock prices rise and there is generally a positive outlook within the market.

Podcast from last week: #120 Pivot client story w. Sarah – Managing inheritance and being smart with my money
In this episode, I chat to one of our lovely clients, Sarah, and shares her journey about how she overcomes some of her investment fears to take the action and to get started with investing in how she actually shifted her approach to risk or how she felt about risk in a way that gave her the confidence to actually invest a lump sum of cash that she had. Also, some of the sort of light bulb moments in going through the process, as well as how the scenario planning and starting to look ahead caused her to course-correct and make some tweaks that had a huge impact to her bottom line.

Apple
Spotify
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Giving update of the week
This week we’ve been working with a couple of new clients that are really passionate about sustainable investing, which has led me to think a lot about what’s happening on the planet and how we can have a positive impact. We’ve celebrated the time given by the amazing speakers we’ve had on the show by furthering our contribution to protecting Australia’s rainforests by protecting a further 500 square metres of rainforest to bring our total amount of conserved rainforest to 1,000 square metres. If you want to learn more about how you can have a positive impact on our planet by following the next few weeks on the podcast.  You can check out more information about our giving here.

Smart Money upside #24
Because people don’t often talk about the full ins and outs of their money, it’s hard to learn lessons from hearing what good and bad choices other people make. This story from one of our clients to help you take your money game to the next level.

Numbers/Background
Couple, late 30’s; household income ~90k, total assets ~150k, savings ~13k annually

Frustrations
Not having confidence in their decisions, not earning enough to fund the lifestyle they want, property ownership seems impossible.

What they wanted from us / the advice process
Have a plan that is easy to follow and helps them get the outcomes they want. Understand property and how this can help them get ahead. Figure out where their money goes.

What money strategy they were following before we went through the planning process
Nothing really. Have bought some shares and crypto (made a loss on the latter), and have tried to sort out their banking – but that doesn’t seem to be working.

What money strategy they chose to pursue from our planning work
Going to look to buy a family home with help from Alex’s parents. Sell their shares and crypto to use for the home purchase costs and get super working more efficiently and get Alex contributing at a good level once the property is purchased.

Key benefits of going through the process
Clarity, peace of mind that property ownership is possible. Having a plan in place.

Value of advice after all advice fees year one: $36,375
Year 20 upside after advice fees: $1,032,429

 

If this story resonates and you want to chat about how to get these sorts of results, you can book an intro call here.

Be awesome,

Ben

 

PS: If you want a hand to get on the front foot with your money in 2021, check out our 45-minute one-on-one sessions here. We’re donating 100% of the money raised to charity, so you can up your money game and do something good on the planet at the same time.

 

Disclaimer:
I know you’re smarter than someone that would need me to write the words that come next, but our compliance peeps are real hard-asses so here we go… This information is not personal advice, poetry, or a map to where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. It may only be regarded as general advice, and definitely shouldn’t be considered something worthy of inclusion for Donna Hay’s next cookbook or the Archibald prize. This is actually just an email communication that has been sent to a bunch of people and doesn’t even have your name on it. Your personal objectives, needs or financial situation have not been considered when preparing this email, but I want you to know that I have spent a lot of time thinking about the Venn diagram intersection of poetry, landscaping, and essential oils – if you’re fascinated by this same phenomenon please reply so we can compare notes. You should consider the appropriateness of any general advice we have given you, having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs, and if necessary, seek advice before acting on it. You should also consider other people when getting on and off public transport, smiling more, eating healthy, and listening to your mum when she tells you that you’ve been working too hard. Where the information relates to a financial product, you should obtain and consider the relevant product disclosure statement before making any decision to purchase that financial product. Where the information relates to a hilarious joke I’ve made, you should consider belly laughing deeply. Worth noting also that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance when it comes to investments, and definitely not when it comes to the Wallabies. Financial services guide. All jokes aside and just to be clear, this information may only be regarded as general advice. That is, your personal objectives, needs or financial situations were not considered when preparing it.  You should consider the appropriateness of any general advice we have given you, having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs, and if necessary, seek advice before acting on it. Where the information relates to a financial product, you should obtain and consider the relevant product disclosure statement before making any decision to purchase that financial product. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.