What if you accepted you couldn’t predict the future?
“Prediction Addiction” is dangerous to your wealth
In our Foundations’ series on Behavioural Science, we identified “Prediction Addiction” as a one of a number of psychological biases that are potentially dangerous to your wealth. We discussed there that:
“We have an in-built addiction to predict that is almost hardwired into our brains. Thousands of years of evolution have honed our biological need to detect and interpret patterns. We hate randomness and we have a compulsion to make predictions about the unpredictable. Our brains seek patterns automatically and most of the time this is occurring outside of our awareness.”
How does your “Personal Financial Scorecard” look?
A picture paints a thousand words…
Our recent article, “What is “The Value of Financial Planning”?”, introduced a number of key metrics that we monitor to assess clients’ progress toward meeting their financial objectives. Together with some additional important measures, a “Personal Financial Scorecard” can be created for each client.
This Scorecard succinctly captures financial progress and highlights strengths and weaknesses in a client’s current situation. It’s easy to see whether a client is on track to achieve their desired financial future and what steps they need to take to enhance their financial position.
Dividend imputation and super funds: debunking the myth
A focus on imputation credits in super only adds to risk
Many investment advisers and accountants who provide advice to self managed super fund clients insist on investing in shares that pay fully franked dividends. We’re not sure why. Perhaps they believe in some magical additional benefit that dividend imputation credits offer super funds. It’s a pretty simplistic approach to investing which has little foundation when you delve a little deeper.
The downside of this lopsided strategy is to sacrifice prudential portfolio management in favour of tax strategy. Most dividend imputation funds have a modest skew towards “value” stocks and while this strategy may pay off (in times when value stocks, such as banks, outperform the broader market), it may just as likely under perform.
Why are most millionaire doctors and lawyers Income Statement Affluent?
Doctors and lawyers are inefficient at turning high incomes into wealth
In both his most recent book, “Stop Acting Rich”, and his previous best selling books, “The Millionaire Mind” and “The Millionaire Next Door”, Dr Thomas Stanley, US researcher of the behaviours of wealthy people, distinguishes between millionaire households that he calls Income Statement Affluent (“IA”) and Balance Sheet Affluent (“BA”).
Stanley defines millionaires as those holding more than $1 million in net investment assets. The family home and other lifestyle assets are excluded from this measurement, as they are seen primarily as sources of consumption rather than avenues to true financial independence1.
Click Here To Read More
Is the nation’s financial planning on track?
What trends in key financial planning indicators should we expect?
As wealth managers, we spend a lot of time working with our clients to structure their affairs to give them the best chance of achieving their desired financial futures. And we’re not just talking about structuring in terms of setting up self managed super funds, family trusts and the like. We’re talking about the structure and composition of their personal balance sheets. To us, this is the foundation of good financial planning.
We thought it would be interesting to look at the change in the financial position of the average Australian household over the past 20 years. Given the aging of the baby boomers over these two decades and their growing need to prepare for imminent retirement, we were surprised with what we found.
Click Here To Read More
What is “The Value of Financial Planning”?
Financial planning continues to get a bad rap …
Financial planning continues to get a bad rap. The Global Financial Crisis, poor investment returns, the failure of various financial planning firms and investment schemes, threats of further government regulation of the industry and a media that is all too willing to focus on the negative are contributing factors. As a result, many people that should under no circumstances attempt to look after their personal financial affairs have been convinced that this is the best way to go.
And for those that continue to seek financial advice, too many decisions are being made on the basis of immediate cost rather than an assessment of value. This is often because it is difficult to judge the value ahead of making the decision to appoint a financial planner. But cost may be a very poor guide to quality. And, unfortunately, it will not reflect missed opportunities, mistakes and poor decisions.
DIY Financial Planning – The real costs may not be evident
DIY Financial Planning appears to be a low cost alternative
There are a lot of smart people who make some rather dumb choices with respect to their finances. More often than not this is driven by short term thinking and the desire to save an immediate out of pocket expense. There is often a failure to lift the eyes and see the bigger picture.
An example that highlights this is the use of superannuation. We’ve talked previously about the significant benefits of making pre-tax contributions to super. However, in this article we look at the benefits of making post-tax contributions to super.
Click Here To Read More
Is your investment risk strategy paying off?
Are you an intelligent risk taker?
Most investors accept the notion that risk and return are related and that those who are prepared to take on more risk will ultimately get rewarded for their risk taking. As we’ve seen with the implosion of some investments during the GFC, increased risk taking does not always guarantee higher returns, it simply exposes you to the opportunity for higher returns.
Click Here To Read More
Transitioning to your target asset allocation
How do you close the gap between your current and target asset allocation?
Our previous article, “Measuring your current asset allocation”, explained how we believe wealth accumulators (those whose after-tax earnings exceed their lifestyle expenditure) should measure their current asset allocation. It requires them to estimate their projected surplus or future capital to add to their Net Investment Wealth, to calculate a measure of total Projected Lifetime Investment Wealth.
Click Here To Read More
Measuring your current asset allocation
You need to know your current asset allocation
In our last article, “Choosing your target asset allocation”, we discussed the key determinants of the choice of your target asset allocation. But in developing an investment strategy designed to reach your target by retirement it is essential to have a meaningful measure of your current asset allocation.
For those who expect to continue to accumulate wealth from business or employment earnings, the traditional ways of measuring asset allocation are not very helpful. A better approach to asset allocation takes advantage of our “Projected Lifetime Investment Wealth” framework. It takes a much broader view of wealth and provides valuable insights relevant to answering many typical personal finance questions e.g. how much could or should I borrow, how should I build my risky growth asset exposure over time, can I afford a larger home.
Click Here To Read More
