Investment News

Investment News NZ (IN NZ) wraps up another year with a return to the default option: the 10 most-read stories out of the 450 or so perused during the 12-month period. The 2020 recap – as readers may recall – was a special double-feature that, after careful analysis, has been rated unsustainable by environmental, social… [Read More…]

Almost 224,000 KiwiSaver members and just over $2.3 billion are on the move in December as the new default regime goes live. The final figure, well below initial estimates, has seen the six incoming default providers onboard about 37,300 members and $390 million apiece, according to industry sources. As reported in November, the ultimate default… [Read More…]

ASX-listed global equities manager, Magellan, entered a trading halt last Friday ahead of “the termination of a material contract” expected to take the group’s funds under management below A$100 billion. Australian media reports suggest Magellan is poised to lose an estimated A$18.6 billion institutional mandate with UK financial advisory giant, St James Place (SJP) –… [Read More…]

NZ investors have eased-off hedging ratios for global equities over the last two years despite expecting the Kiwi dollar to rise, according to the latest BNZ survey of fund foreign exchange practices. The 2021 BNZ FX Hedging Survey – the 10th in the biennial series – found the average currency hedge ratio for international share… [Read More…]

Financial advice affordability has been flagged as a potential problem for NZ consumers in a new parliamentary committee report handed down last week. The Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) summary report of changes in NZ post the Australian Royal Commission (ARC) into financial services says feedback from local regulators suggests advice is too pricey for… [Read More…]

Danish financial intermediary, Saxo Bank, has tipped 2022 will see the green energy transition stall, Facebook make a meta-fail and US inflation top 15 per cent. Well kind of. The three long-shot calls feature among 10 forecast trends for 2022 dished out last week by the Copenhagen-based fintech in the latest version of its annual… [Read More…]

AMP Capital NZ has added its voice to the mounting chorus of concerns about the resilience of traditional balanced funds amid changing financial fundamentals. In an investor note published last week, Michael Gray, AMP Capital NZ head of investments, says the old-school 60/40 portfolio mix of equities and fixed income has worked well over long… [Read More…]

Investors pouring money into broad-based environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies may have to brace for disappointing returns as sustainability efforts push some companies to the wall, according to a new MFS investor note. The MFS analysis says shares with a high ESG rating have accrued about a third of the record flows into equities… [Read More…]

Russell Investments has overhauled its NZ product range in a renewed tilt at the retail and smaller wholesale markets. Under the changes announced last Friday, Russell will slash fees across the board, restructure its global shares product for greater tax efficiency and release two new funds targeting the high-demand sectors of indexed sustainable international equities… [Read More…]

AMP NZ has added four Milford Asset Management funds to its KiwiSaver and superannuation scheme menus just months after switching in-house products to BlackRock index strategies. In new scheme documents released last week, AMP lists the Milford Aggressive, Active Growth, Balanced and Conservative funds as options for its KiwiSaver and NZ Retirement Trust (NZRT) investors…. [Read More…]