In the Media

In Australia there is a growing trend among women to become financially independent. Financial planners, stock brokers and estate agents tell me that more and more women are looking at ways to build knowledge and create wealth through investing and in a lot of cases have assets behind them before they decide to tie the knot and marry ‘Mr Right’. Unfortunately it is not until something happens that we look at what we should have done and this applies to any contract or agreement we enter into including marriage...

How important is negative gearing property to Australian investors? For most of us earning a wage and saving will not provide sufficient funds to afford a comfortable retirement. Many Australian families have built wealth and secured their futures on the back of property investing using negative gearing to help them get ahead. However, at every election negative gearing property is raised in the media as the speculators posture over whether or not a future government should tinker with the current system...

Dale Gillham, Chief Analyst at Wealth Within says the move is not surprising, and has heard "in the rumour mill" that more banks will follow suit. “The news I’ve been hearing is a lot of the banks are going to start getting rid of planners. Whether that happens, I don’t really know…Do the banks really need to be in that space? They’re a product provider that sells right across the board. I understand they want to drive distribution into where their products are but I think they need to concentrate on making better products and lowering their fees. He says that banks have traditionally been focused on buying distribution for their products, but FoFA is...

Most Australians will now have heard about the new reforms to superannuation. In reality most people don’t like change whether big or small, and we are all guilty at times of not stopping long enough to read the detail and instead react to talk of changes to taxation that could take a bite out of our savings. But perhaps this is a call to us all to take a closer look at our own financial health?  Generally, I see the recent changes around superannuation as quite conservative so forgive me if I don’t get on my high horse in support of those with very healthy super fund balances, who according to the changes will soon be paying 15% tax on any earnings above $100,000...

"The odds on a 15% to 20% fall by early next year are high," warns Dale Gillham, executive director of investment education firm Wealth Within.  "The uncertain global financial and economic situation means anything could happen."  Share investors who have built up big paper profits from share gains over the past year or so can use a range of alternative strategies. As Gillham explains, these include: taking all or part of you unrealised gains now by simply selling shares; betting against the market by using traditional shorting techniques; buying put options or warrants; short selling contracts for difference (CFDs)...