Tag Archives: ETF

ETF, Investing , , , , , 3 Comments

InvestNow Added SmartShares ETFs into their Offerings

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InvestNow announced they added 7 SmartShares ETFs into their investment platform. They are the following:

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You can access to those ETFs from SmartShares, Superlife, and Sharesies (on some ETF) already. I’ve compared the cost on those ETFs on the previous post and concluded you should get most of the ETF from Superlife except US 500; SmartShares was the better choice for US 500. You can check out the related post below

Related post: Compare ETF Fund Cost between Superlife and Smartshares

Cheapest Option for US 500 ETF

Smartshare was the cheapest option for investing in US 500 ETF because of the low management fee at 0.35% and no annual admin fee. There is a $30 set up fee if you use SmartShares contribution plan and at least $30 exit fee when you sell your ETF.
If you buy or sell the ETF on the share market, there will be $30+ transaction fee on each transaction. Superlife US 500 ETF fund has a higher management fee at 0.49% and charges a $12 annual fee. Sharesies have the same management fee with SmartShare, but they charge $30/year on admin fee. Therefore SmartShares contribution the cheapest option for US500 ETF investing.

Now InvestNow added SmartShares ETF into their offerings, it further lower the cost of US500 ETF. InvestNow offers an investment platform for investors with no annual admin fee. Investors can also bypass the $30 set up fee and the cost of exit the fund on SmartShares ETF. The minimum investment amount lower at $250 and no contribution commitment required. The management fee will be the same with SmartShares at 0.35%. Check out the comparison below. (Update: InvestNow client can now set up regular investment with just $50/transaction.)

 

 

Different Way of Contribution

By looking at the number, InvestNow investors can save on $30 set up and the $30+ cost of exit, so it appears to be a better deal to SmartShares. There is a difference on how you contribute to the fund between Smartshares and InvestNow. Take a look at the function difference below.

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The main limitation for InvestNow investors is the lack of small amount direct debit. SmartShares Investor will be committed to at least $50/month contribution (can be stopped at request). InvestNow investors are free to contribute whenever they want. However, the minimum contribution amount will be $250/transaction. If you only have $50/month to invest, you will have to put money in InvestNow once every five months to reach the $250 requirements. So on the one hand, you will save $30 in the beginning, but you will miss five months possible loss/return. (Update: InvestNow client can now set up regular investment with just $50/transaction.)

Compare Return Between InvestNow and SmartShares

(Update: InvestNow customer can now set up regular investment plan with just $50/transcation. InvestNow will be a better choice over SmartShares in terms of cost.)

To work out which one is the better deal on US 500, I ran an analysis to compare the return between InvestNow and SmartShares.

I assume the investor has $500 available to invest and can contribute $50/month. With SmartShares, the fund going to start with $470 due the to $30 setup fee and the investor will contribute $50/month. At InvestNow, investor’s fund will start with $500 and will contribute $250 every five months. The investor will continue for five years (60 months) without any withdrawal. Expected return rate is 10.32% before tax. Here is the breakdown.

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Although SmarShares charge a $30 setup fee up front which lowered the starting amount to $470, they ended up with a higher end balance at $4,640.51. The reason is Smartshares investor contribute $50 every month, and those funds are growing while InvestNow customer’s money is sitting in the bank doing nothing.

Here is the result of different levels of contribution at the end of the fifth year.

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SmartShares investor has a higher return over InvestNow at a lower rate, the gap close as they reach $250 marks. I stopped at $250/month because once you can contribute that amount, you can put money in InvestNow every month. From this point, InvestNow customer will always have better return over SmartShares

It seems SmartShares will be a better deal if your contribution under $200/month. However, there is a flaw in this analysis.

In my assumption, I set the rate of return at 10.32% for all five years. It assumpts the share price of the ETF going up in a straight line and investor will have a positive return every month. However, in real life share price goes up and down every day. By contributing less frequently, InvestNow investor may lose some of the gains during those five months, but they also avoid some drop as well. Afterall, the share price looks like this in real life.

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Applying Real Data

So I collected the share price of US 500 ETF for the past 24 months and plugged that into our analysis. Here is the result. Click here to see the ROI. 

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This time InvestNow ended up with a higher balance over SmartShares. In fact, Investnow beats SmartShares on every contribution level with past data. Check out the result below.

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The Real Deciding Factor

No one knows how the US 500 ETF is going to perform in the future so either service can be cheaper. If you look closely at the amount, the cost difference between InvestNow and SmartShares are insignificant, less than 0.1% of your fund. So investors will need to consider their contribution level and the experience of those two services.

In my opinion, InvestNow functions and its user interface are much better than SmartShare. InvestNow have a modern, clean and easy to understand platform. SmartShares’ holder will be checking their current stock holding on Link Market Service web site. The interface feels like it stuck in 2010.

Related post on InvestNow and SmartShares (Link Market Service)

The main limitation on InvestNow is lack direct debit option, so it’s not a “set and forget” type of investment solution. The investor will have to deposit the money into InvestNow platform and manually invest US 500 ETF on InvestNow website. InvestNow said the direct debit function is on the road map so the situation may improve in the future.

Link Market Service interface for SmartShares is not good, but you can view your holding on other services like ShareSight, Google Finance, and Yahoo Finance to improve that experience.

Conclusion

It’s great to see InvestNow adding more and more fund onto their platform. I prefer InvestNow interface and function over SmartShares. However, I understand everyone circumstances are different so here are some recommendations which service you should consider on US 500 ETF.

  • Use SmartShares if you want a ‘Set and Forget’ solution and you plan to contribution between $50 – $200/month. (Update: InvestNow customer can now set up regular investment plan with just $50/transcation. InvestNow will be a better choice over SmartShares in terms of cost.)
  • Use InvestNow if you like their user interface (you can register for free on InvestNow to check out the interface), don’t want to commit to a monthly contribution plan and happy to invest manually at minimum $250.
  • Use SuperLife if you already have a portfolio with SuperLife and want to have all funds under one flexible service with great functions.
  • Use Sharesies if you like their interface. Check out my comparison here.
  • For other ETFs, you should use SuperLife, here is why.

Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.

 

 

ETF, Investing, Personal Finance Basic , , , , , 20 Comments

Sharesies (Beta) – How does it stack up to SuperLife and SmartShares on ETF Investing

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Sharesies is rolling out their trial run (a.k.a beta) investments options couple weeks ago. I’ve got their invitation recently and checked out their offerings. Sharesies is currently offering six SmartShares ETFs for their investor including NZ Top 50, AUS Top 20, US 500, NZ Bond, NZ Property and AUS Resources. You can check out their current offers here.

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What is Sharesies

Sharesies is a New Zealand financial start-up company supported by Kiwibank Fintech Accelerator. They are an investment platform where users can make investments with small amounts of money. One of their mission is to make investment fun, easy and affordable.

The main selling point of Sharesies is by paying a $30 annual fee, an investor can invest into multiple investments with the minimum at just $5. Also, there is a $20 credit for the early Beta investor.

Invest $5 into ETF

In comparison, SmartShares ETF initial investment is $500, set up cost is $30/ETF and monthly contribution minimum is $50. So Sharesies is a great way for beginner investor to invest in a small amount into many low-cost, diversified ETFs. It bypasses the $500 initial investment and $30 set up fee with each ETFs.

On the other hand, SuperLife also offers the same ETF in their investment fund with a different management cost. You can check out the detailed comparison here.

While Superlife also doesn’t require initial investment and the minimum contribution can be just $1. How does Sharesies stack up to SuperLife and SmartShares on ETF investing?

Sharesies vs SuperLife & SmartShares

I’ve picked two popular ETF, NZ Top 50 and US 500, to run an analysis for 60 months (5 years). The analysis will compare the result on different contribution level(low and high contribution) for all three services. The low contribution will be at Sharesies minimum requirement, $30 initial investment (for the annual admin fee), $20/month contribution (about $5/week); The high contribution will be at SmartShares minimum requirement, $500 initial on each ETF, $50/month conditions.

NZ Top 50 ETF at low contribution

Here is the fees structure on the ETF

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This is the amount of low contribution and expected return

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So Sharesies have a higher admin fee ($30) and ETF management cost (0.50%), so its expenses should be higher then Superlife NZ top 50 ETF. Since Sharesies are aiming for beginner investor, I put around $5/week as a low-level contribution. The $30 initial investment cost is to cover Sharesies annual fee. Smartshares will not be included in this analysis as the investment amount is too low.

Here is the investment return each year

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Superlife did better as it has a lower management fee and admin fee resulted in a higher return for the customer. The 5-years different is $135.81, 8.4%.

NZ Top 50 ETF at high contribution

This is the amount of high contribution and expected return

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We increased the contribution to $50/month, put $500 as an initial investment and include SmartShares into the mix.

Here is the investment return each year

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SmartShares came out on top despite the fact that they have a higher management cost. The main reason is that Smartshares don’t have an annual admin fee while Superlife charges $1/month. However, if you wish to cash out those Smartshares at this stage, it will cost you at least $30.

The difference between SmartShares and Sharesies is $163.34, 3.3%. Although both services have the same management cost, Sharesies charge $30/year admin fee which brings down the balance.

US 500 ETF at low contribution

Here is the fees structure on US 500 ETF

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This is the amount of low contribution and expected return

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This is more interesting as Sharesies have a lower management (0.31%) cost compare to Superlife (0.44%).

Here is the investment return each year

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Due to the small amount of holding, the lower management cost (0.35%) did not cover the higher annual fee ($30) with Sharesies. Superlife holding was $122.28 more then Sharesies in year 5, 8.1%.

US 500 ETF at high contribution

This is the amount of high contribution and expected return

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Now we will do the same thing by increasing the investment to Smartshares minimum requirement.

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SmartShares USF came out on top with no annual fee and lower management cost. The different between SmartShares and Sharesies at year 5 is $154.75, 3.3%. The different to Superlife is $41.5, 0.9%.

In both scenario, Investor with low contribution level and better with SuperLife. If you have the $500 and $50/month to invest, SmartShares is the cheaper way. (Although I will suggest going with Superlife on NZ top 50. I’ve already covered that in another post)

How about portfolio building?

Since Sharesies investors can bypass SmartShares setup fee and initial investment requirement. So Sharesies is actually a great tool to build a simple portfolio. I will use US 500 ETF, NZ Top 50 ETF and NZ Bond ETF to build a portfolio.

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Here is a balanced portfolio you can easily build with Sharesies. 25% NZ Bond, 37.5% US 500 and 37.5% NZ Top 50. If we keep the low contribution at $20/month, you can put $5 in NZ Bond, $7.5 in US 500 and $7.5 in NZ Top 50.

If you wish to set up something similar in SmartShares, you will have to spend $30 x 3 =$90 on set up fees, at least $500 x 3 = $1500 initial investment and $50 x 3 = $150/month contribution. Not feasible at all.

SuperLife, on the other hand, as my best pick for portfolio builder in New Zealand can easily build the same portfolio. Let’s check out the cost difference.

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Here are the contribution and return

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Here is the investment return each year

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Superlife still edged out at year 5 with $123.15 more, 8.2%. I didn’t do a high contribution comparison here because SmartShares are really not fir for portfolio building.

Conclusion

Based on the analysis, SuperLife is still the better choice on low contribution and most of the high contribution (except US 500 ETF) regarding cost. However, I still think Sharesies is doing something good here.

Sharesies is promoting to young Kiwis who never invested before by providing a straightforward and easy-to-use app. The sign-up process is simple and painless. The interface is robust and delightful. They’ve done an excellent job on explaining each investment options to beginner investment and make it accessible. Check out the screenshots below.

 

 

I don’t mind about the $30 admin fee if that what’s it take for a newbie to start investing for their future. I’ve been telling readers to spend $12/year on Superlife as they have a better user interface and functions over SmartShares. Sharesies interface and user experience are way better than both of them. They made investing as easy as shopping online, which should bring a lot of people into the world of investing.

Sharesies are still in beta, so there are some functions are missing, like reinvest and auto allocation. I am sure Sharesies will continue to improve on their functions and brign in more investment options. Hope more companies like Sharesies will pop up in New Zealand to bring more people into investing.

More investor, bigger the market size, lower the cost!

Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.

ETF, Investing, Personal Finance Advanced , , , , , 12 Comments

Compare ETF Fund Cost between Superlife and Smartshares (2017 Update)

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Recently SuperLife and SmartShares lower the management fee on four ETFs. So it’s time to update the ETF cost comparison. Also, I am changing my initial recommendation on starting your investment with SmartShares then switch to SuperLife.

Cost update

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Both Superlife and SmartShares lower their cost on Total World, Europe, Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets ETF. The reason was Vanguard reduce their underlying fee, so SuperLife and SmartShares passed on the cost saving to its customer.

Should you start with SmartShare?

In the past, I recommended to start your ETF investment with SmartShares then switch to Superlife when the fund hit a certain amount. The main reason was Superlife charge a $12/year admin fee, it will cost more in terms of percentage for beginners with a small amount of investment. However, that calculation ignored the $30 one-off initial fee, the cost of setting up extra funds with SmartShares and the exit cost.

Let’s look the following example for an investor started NZ Top 50 ETF with $500 initial investment and $50/month contribution for 5 years. NZ Top 50 ETF 5 years annualized return is 16.49%. I’ve put it in a simple simulation to compare investment between SuperLife and SmartSharesand for 5 years.

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SmartShaers started with $30 less due to the setup fee. That $30 initial different made Smartshares cost more for that first 3 years, (38 months to be exact). By the end of the 5 years, the different between Superlife and Smartshares is only $24.09. That’s about 2 years of SuperLife admin fees and represent about 0.44% of your holding. That percentage will decrease if we increase the investment amount. So, there are some saving with Smartshare, but the saving is insignificant.

Also, there are some other benefits with SuperLife.

  • Better user interface compared to Link Market Service
  • Easy to switch fund with no cost
  • No setup cost for new fund
  • More fund options included sector fund and passively managed fund
  • No withdrawal cost

Personally, I think those benefit worth that $12/year with Superlife.

My Recommendation

If you wish to invest in S&P500 ETF, NZ Cash ETF and Emerging Market ETF, start with SmartShares because their management fee is still lower than SuperLife.

(UPDATE at Aug 2017, InvestNow added S&P 500 on their platform. An investor can bypass the $30 setup fee with SmartShares while having the low management cost at 0.35%. Check out the details here ) 

For any other ETF, just go and join SuperLife. You will be much better off.

If you are currently holding SmartShares ETF and want to switch to SuperLife. There is a way to switch without open a brokage account and pay $30 to sell your Smartshare. However, you will have to email me on that.

Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.

Index Fund, Investing, Personal Finance Basic , , , , , 8 Comments

The Best Way to Start Your Investment as Beginner in New Zealand

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You may already know you need to start investing for your future, but you have no idea where to start. There are so many options out there like the sharemarket, investment property, P2P lending, the bond market, active and passive fund, etc. You have no idea which one is the best for you.

Well, I don’t know what is best for you because everyone’s situation is different. However, I think it’s better to start somewhere rather than sit here and do nothing. People say, “you need time in the market, not timing the market” or “The earlier you start the better”. I believe both of them are true. So, here is my suggestion on where to start your investment.

What you need to do before you start investing

Before you jump into the world of investing, you need to have a solid financial foundation. Here is what you should do.

  1. Pay off your consumer debt like credit card balances, personal loans, store credit, overdrafts and hire purchases. It doesn’t make sense to chase for 6-7% return on investment while paying 19-22% interest on your credit card debt.
  2. Join KiwiSaver. KiwiSaver is one of the best investments available in New Zealand because of the employer contribution and member tax credit. You will have an instant risk-free return on your investment.
  3. Set up an emergency fund for 3-6 months of living expenses. This fund will help you to deal with any unexpected situations, so you’re not forced to cash out your investment, especially during a market downturn
  4. Live on less than you make. Naturally, no one can become successful with their money without first learning how to live on less than they make. Where will you get the money to invest if you live paycheck to paycheck?

Better to start with a plan, however…

You should have a plan for your money before you start investing. Failing to plan is planning to fail, right? That why in my previous post I said the first thing you’ll need to work out is how long can you leave the money in the investment? Or how long before you will need to use that money?

On the other hand, I know how hard it is to come up with a plan when you don’t understand most of the investment terms. It’s hard to learn something from the outside when you don’t have personal experience. You may be afraid you will make a mistake and lose your hard-earned money.

I also understand how busy life is and how lazy we are (Well, at least how lazy I am). It took me six months to finally put down some cash into an investment. I kept making ‘plans’ and doing ‘research’ for my investments (actually I’ve been putting it off because I am lazy).

I started looking into investment strategies on the Internet in April, but I looked around without making any decisions for 4 months. I remember I found out about Smartshares and SuperLife and decided an index fund is the way to go in August, but it still took me two more months to pick which fund or ETF to invest in. Who knows if that is analysis paralysis or just laziness paralysis?

It may be just me, but I know lots of people are in the same boat, especially the beginners. You know you need it start investing, but you don’t have a complete plan yet. So you wait. To those people, hear me out!

If you don’t have a plan, just start without one.

Start small and start early

I am not talking about putting in your life saving without a plan. I suggest you dip your toe in the water.  Just put under $500 into an investment and get it started. TODAY!

That small amount of cash should not affect your financial situation (if that is a problem, you should make sure you have a solid financial foundation). You should be able to move it quickly to start a small investment. You may not even care if you lost it, so you don’t need a plan for that small initial investment. You can put it in almost any fund as the start of your investment.

The most important thing is to get you started on something. Once you dip your toe in the water, you’ll have a personal stake in the investment. Looking at the value go up or down will motivate you to know more about investment. It will help you put together a plan for your investment.

Best way to start – SuperLife

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SuperLife provides 40+ different passive investment fund to New Zealander. They also offer superannuation, KiwiSaver, and insurance solutions. They are great for beginner to start because:

  • No minimum investment requirement – You can invest by making regular or lump sum payments to the scheme at any time. There is no minimum contribution amount.
  • Passive Index Fund – All investment fund with SuperLife are passive index funds. They either invest in a fund designed to track an index or in a number of assets for the long term. It is a cost-effective and diversified investment opinion with a proven result.
  • Low cost – The annual admin fee is $12/year (or $30/year if you want paper documents) which covers all fund in SuperLife. The management cost on each fund is around 0.39% – 0.94%, fees for the most popular funds is around 0.49%.  SuperLife’s fees are relatively low in New Zealand standard(2nd lowest in the country), and some aggressive funds and sector funds have the lowest cost in New Zealand. There is no joining fee, exit fee, and no cost for you add/close/or switch funds.
  • Flexible – SuperLife provides 40 different investment products on managed fund, sector fund and ETF. An investor can invest in a single fund or multiple funds with their own asset allocation. You can switch fund allocation on SuperLife website.
  • Web Site and App – Investors can log onto SuperLife website to check the performance and value of their holding. They’ve also got an iOS and Android App for that.
  • Simple Tax – SuperLife’s investment fund is a portfolio investment entity (PIE). The amount of tax you pay is based on your prescribed investor rate (PIR). SuperLife will pay the tax from your holding, and you don’t need to manage your tax return.
  • Lots of functions – Investors can make lump sum investments or regular contributions with direct debit from their bank account. You can organise your portfolio and allocation your contribution into different funds based on your preferred percentage. SuperLife can auto rebalance your portfolio, which is a great tool for the investor who wants to build a portfolio with their own asset allocation. It can also reinvest your dividends.
  • Owned by New Zealand Stock Exchange –  NZX is New Zealand stock market operator. They 100% own SuperLife. In my opinion, this makes SuperLife a very safe company.

Start with Index Fund

For those who don’t have a plan and want to start small and test it out, here are a couple Funds/ETF in Superlife I think are ideal for beginners.
SuperLife Age Step: This is a managed portfolio invested in multiple Vanguard ETF in both income and growth assets. The ratio between income and growth assets depends on your age. When you are young, over 90% of that portfolio is invested in growth assets (shares and property). It will increase the ratio of income assets (Bond and fixed income assets) as you age. If you join at 28 years old, 80% will be in growth assets, and 20% will be in income assets. On the other hand, if you join at 58, 60.5% will be in growth assets, 30% in income assets and 9.5% in cash.  This is a great fund to start especially if you aim for retirement. You can basically set it up and forget about it for decades. The management fees are 0.45%-0.52%.
NZ Top 50 ETF: This growth asset ETF is the same as FNZ from SmartShares. They invest in financial products listed on the NZX Main Board and is designed to track the return on the S&P/NZX 50 Portfolio Index. You are basically investing in the 50 biggest companies on New Zealand Stock Market. The concept is simple and easy to understand, so this is a great starting point for beginners. One disadvantage is this ETF is not as diversified as others because it is only invested in 50 companies in one country while other funds invest in between 100 to 7000+ companies all over the world. On the other hand, investors can take the tax advantage on local investing. You only need to pay tax on dividends and no tax on capital gain. The management fee is 0.49%.
Overseas Shares (Currency Hedged) Fund: This growth asset fund invests in shares in major stock markets all over the world via the Vanguard ETF. The number of companies included is over 7000. This fund is currency hedged, which reduces the currency fluctuations and exchange rate risk on the fund. The management fee is 0.48%.

Conclusion

  • Make sure you have a good financial foundation before you start investing. Clear your consumer debt, Join KiwiSaver, have an Emergency Fund and live on less than you make.
  • Best to start with a plan
  • If you don’t have a plan, start small while you make your plan.
  • The hardest part is getting started. By starting small, you make the first step so much easier.
  • SuperLife is the best place to start your investment in my opinion because there is no initial requirement, and it is diversified, low-cost, flexible and straightforward.
  • If you have no idea what fund to invest in, consider SuperLife Age Step, NZ top 50 ETF and Overseas Shares (Currency Hedged) Fund
  • Start small and START NOW!

Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.

 

 

ETF, Investing, Personal Finance Basic , , , , , , , 4 Comments

How Easy to Get Your Money out from SmartShares ETF

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SmartShares offer 23 exchange-traded fund (ETF) in New Zealand. They tracked different stock and industry index in New Zealand, Australia, United States and international market. It is an excellent opinion for Kiwis investor due to the low-cost and diversified portfolio. So, how easy to get your money out? (Spoiler alert: Very easy)

ETF is tradable share

ETF is similar to an index fund that tracks an index, a commodity, bonds, a sector or a basket of assets. However, ETF can be traded on the stock market like any other stock. ETF shareholders are entitled to a proportion of the profits, such as earned interest and dividends paid.

Liquidity of shares

Since ETF is a share, i. In order to get the money out, you will have to sell your ETF in the stock market, just like any other stocks. This brings us to Liquidity of a share.

Liquidity means how easy for you to sell your share into cash on the stock market. If lots of people wanting to buy that share and lots of willing seller on the market, the liquidity is good.

We use trade me as an example here. If you are selling a brand new iPhone on trade me at a price closed to everyone else is selling, you will be able to sell that iPhone quickly.  Also, you can use similar amount cash to buy an iPhone on trade me without any problem. So the liquidity of an iPhone is good on trade me.

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However, if you want to sell an expensive and rare antique phone on trade me, it may take months and multiple listing to sell that phone. You may have to lower your price to get it sold. It also hard to find another expensive and rare antique phone on trade. So, the liquidity of an expensive and rare antique phone is bad.

Let’s take a look at Auckland International Airport’s stock info.

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You can see there is lots of buying (Bids) and selling (Asks) order. Lots of trade happened in 13 mins. The different between buy and sell price (a.k.a. Bid-Ask Spread) is only $0.5c.

Now compare that to Delegat Group Limited’s Share.

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There are some buy and sell order, but there was no trade at all. The different between buy and sell price is $10c. There is a seller want to sell 2000 units of share at $6.25, but there is no one taking that offer. If the owner of that 2000 share intends to liquidate the stock quickly, they will have to lower their selling price by $10c to $6.15 to meet the closest bid. That is $200 less on 2000 share.

If you are an owner of Auckland International Airport share, It will be very easy to liquidate your stock in a short time. On the other hand, if you hold shares in Delegat Group Limited, you will have to wait or lower your price for someone to buy your share.
Here is the info on two popular SmartShare ETF, NZ Top 50 and US S&P 500.

 

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Both of them have a good amount of bid/ask and the spread is small. Therefore, the liquidity is good.
Also, there is a market maker for all Smartshare ETF.

Market Maker

A market maker is an investment firm that guarantees liquidity of stock by putting out buy and sells order on the stock market. They make sure investor can always buy or sell the shares.
The Bid and Ask below are the market maker order.
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At December 2014, SmartShares appoints Craigs Investment Partners as the market maker. Craigs will offer two-way quotes of agreed minimum volume and maximum spread for an agreed minimum period of the full trading day. This will cover all current Smartshares ETFs, plus future ETFs launched by Smartshares.

Always ready to sell

With a market maker on all Smartshare product, its very easy to liquidate your Smartshares holding. However, you will need a stock broker to sell your shares. Especially for those who purchase Smartshares via monthly contribution plan since you don’t need a broker account to do that. Smartshare is not an investment fund, they will not cash out the ETF for you. Lots of people don’t know that.
In order to sell your Smartshare ETF, you will need a broker to put your holding on the stock market. You can google “Stock Broker NZ” to contact any broker firm and set up an account. The cheapest way for most people is to use ASB and ANZ securities to trade online. ANZ cheapest rate is $29.90/trade under $15000. However, you have to be an Online Multi-Currency Account (OMCA) holders with sufficient cleared funds available to fully cover the purchase of securities prior to submission of the order. Otherwise, ANZ charge $29.90 + 0.40% on trade. If you are not an OMCA holder with ANZ, go with ASB Securities, they charge $30 or 0.30% per transactions, whichever higher.
If you currently hold SmartShares ETF and don’t have a brokerage account, do it ASAP. You never know when you need to sell you share in a short period. It will take 2-10 days to set up account with ASB and ANZ. If you starting a monthly contribution plan with SmartShares, make sure you open a brokerage account as well.
Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.
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Cheapest Way to buy and hold NZ Top 50 ETF

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I always encourage people to start a small investment with NZ Top 50 ETF and US 500 ETF when they are starting out. Those two ETFs are easy to understand, diversified, low-cost and have low minimum investment requirement ($500). They are ideal for long term (7 years+) investment. So here is the cheapest way to buy and hold NZ Top 50 ETF.

I will be discussing average investment here. I do not include KiwiSaver opinion here because you can’t get the money out before 65. (Anyway, ETF still an excellence option for KiwiSaver, especially for anyone aged under 50)

What is NZ Top 50 ETF?

Quote from Smart Shares Web Site:

The NZ Top 50 Fund invests in financial products listed on the NZX Main Board and is designed to track the return on the S&P/NZX 50 Portfolio Index. The S&P/NZX 50 Portfolio Index is made up of 50 of the largest financial products listed on the NZX Main Board. The S&P/NZX 50 Portfolio Index is made up of the same financial products as the S&P/NZX 50 Index, but with a 5% cap on the weight of each product.

So basically when you invest in NZ Top 50, you will have a share in the top 50 companies in NZ stock market.

Stock code for NZ Top 50 ETF is FNZ.NZ

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Where and how to buy?

There are three ways to purchase NZ Top 50 ETF, on the stock market, with investment fund or monthly contribution.

Trade on the stock exchange – NZ Top 50 ETF can be traded as share on stock market via any stock broker. I will be using ANZ Securities online and ASB securities online here as they are amongst the cheapest brokers in New Zealand.

Purchase with Fund – Superlife (Smartshare’s sister company) offer NZ Top 50 ETF fund that holds shares in NZ Top 50 ETF. You can set up an account and purchase those fund with Superlife.

Purchase via monthly contribution – This is the most accessible and fixable way to buy into ETF, both Superlife and Smartshare offer that service. You need set up an account with at least $500 initial investment, and contribution $50 monthly to purchase that ETF or fund.

What’re the fees?

Basically, you should look for the lowest fee when you consider investing into the same product.

ANZ & ASB Securities online: You can purchase FNZ directly on the stock market with ANZ Securities. ANZ cheapest rate is $29.90/trade under $15000. However, you have to be an Online Multi-Currency Account (OMCA) holders with sufficient cleared funds available to fully cover the purchase of securities prior to submission of the order. Otherwise, ANZ charge $29.90 + 0.40% on trade. If you are not an OMCA holder with ANZ, go with ASB Securities, they charge $30 or 0.30% per transactions, whichever higher. On top of that, NZ 50 ETF charge 0.50% p.a. on management fee base on your total holding before they pay out. If you did the calculation, in order to pay the least amount of fees, you should only make one trade a year with over $10000, which will bring the fee% to 0.80%.

Smartshares: You can make lump sum investment and monthly contribution with smartshare. They will charge a one-time $30 account setup fee and charge 0.50% p.a. management fee base on your total holding. Check out the SmartShares disclosure statement here.

Superlife: Same as Smartshare, you can do lump sum investment and monthly contribution. They charge a $12 p.a. administration fee and 0.49% management for NZ 50 Top ETF. Check out Superlife disclosure statement here.

Cheapest Way?

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Smartshares is the cheapest way to buy and hold FNZ. Superlife’s fee will become cheaper once the holding passed 120K.

I personally used both Smartshares and Superlife, and I think Superlife have a much better user interface and app. The $12 admin fee can be shared with other Superlife funds.

So if you just want to buy FNZ, Smartshare is the best deal out there. If you already have other funds with Superlife, there is not much difference in cost between Superlife and SmartShares.

Although ASB and ANZ Securities’ cost are higher, you should open an account with them if you got ETF from SmartShares. Since you are buying actually share of ETF via Smartshare, you will need a stock broker when you need to sell your share.

Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.

Bond, ETF, Index Fund, Investing, Personal Finance Basic , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Where to invest your money in New Zealand (Part 2)

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At the last post, I made a simple graph to explain where to invest your money. Now let’s break it down in more detail

where to invest HMobile-friendly version

Within 1 year – Cash in Savings

For such a short terms, your best bet will be keeping your money in a savings account. Most banks offer serious saver or notice saver accounts with interest around 2.25 – 2.75%. I know it’s not a good return but its better than nothing. You may also consider a 6 months to 1-year term deposit for higher interest (3 – 3.5%). However, if you need to get your money out early, you may lose the interest and pay a break fee.

Recommended products: ASB Saver Plus, ANZ Serious Saver, BNZ Rapid Save, Westpac Online Bonus Saver, Kiwi Bank Notice Saver, RaboDirect Premium Saver and Notice Saver.

2 to 3 years – Cash in Term Deposit

You still want to play it safe so you should keep the money in cash. In this time frame, you can use a term deposit as they have a higher return of interest, around 3.5 – 4%. As mentioned previously, watch out of the penalties for early termination.

Recommended products: Term Deposit for all major bank.

3 to 5 years – Income Asset (Bond and Dividend Stocks)

If your money can stay in the market for 3-5 years, income assets become a feasible opinion. BBonds are not as stable as term deposit return, but they do offer the potential to earn a higher yield. I would suggest investing in a Bond ETF or a Bond Fund over buying individual bonds via a stock broker for small investors due to the cost of trade. Bond ETFs and Funds  invested in multiple corporate and government bonds, which should reduce the risk

If you are willing to dip your toes in the share market, you can buy some dividend shares at this stage. Dividend shares are usually associated with established and mature companies on the board that pays out dividends constantly. Don’t expect those companies to have rapid growth but they usually pay out dividends every quarter. The volatility of those shares is smaller compared to other shares on the market. Spark, Auckland Airport, and power companies are considered dividend stock in New Zealand.

Recommended products: NZ Bond ETF, NZ Dividend ETF, NZ Bonds Fund, Global bonds ETF, Overseas Bonds Fund.

5 to 7 years – Shares, Property, and Bond

At this stage, growth assets will play an important part in your investments. Growth assets are shares, properties, and managed funds. The reason we shouldn’t touch growth assets until this stage is because of the volatility of the return. Year-to-year return can be ranged from -80% to +80% , but over longer periods it usually goes up. Take a look at the graph below. It shows the NZ stock market’s return in 2 years from April 2007 to April 2009.

If you invested in the stock market in April 2007 and planned to exit the market in April 2009, you would have lost about 35% of your investment.

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On the other hand, if you had stayed in the market for 7 years, you would have gained 24% on your investment.

The same principle applies to property investment. The House Price index from 2000 to 2016 shows New Zealand property prices are trending up in the long term. You can see there was a dip during the 2008 GFC and the price recovered within a few years.

HPI.png

Therefore, in this timeframe, you should invest more and more into growth assets and the ratio of Bond and Dividend stocks should decrease.

Recommended product

30-80% of Growth Asset: NZ Top 50 ETF, S&P 500 ETF, Total World ETF,  Property Fund, Oversea Shares Fund, Australian Shares Fund.

70-20% of Bond and Dividend shares.

 7 years+ Mostly Growth Asset 

At this point, I recommend invest 90% of your investments in growth assets and expect a long-term positive return on share and property. You may wonder why the income asset portion goes down to 10%. Although income assets are considered a safer investment, but they cannot match the high return of growth assets. Having a small amount of income assets in your investment will help offset potential downturns in your growth assets. Income assets don’t crash like growth asset, it will act as a cushion to soften any drops in the market.

Some people think if you are young and you can handle a market crash, you should have 100% growth assets as your investment. Whilst I agree with this point of view, it basically comes down to risk tolerance and personal preference.

Recommended product

90-100% of Growth Asset: NZ Top 50 ETF, S&P 500 ETF, Total World ETF,  Property Fund, Oversea Shares Fund, Australian Shares Fund.

10-0% of Bond and Dividend shares.

What’s Next?

So this is the guide that I used to decide where to invest my money based on how long I was going to invest. In the next post, I will talk about risk tolerance adjustment and how KiwiSaver funds fit into this graph.

The timeline and investment ratio used in the graph are based on my own studies and conventional wisdom. Investment suggestions are based on neutral risk tolerance. Investment products listed are based on popularity, ease of access in New Zealand and a bit of personal preference.

Just a reminder, this graph is for GENERAL ADVICE ONLY. Your own situation may be different. Please thoroughly research everything you read here and seek professional advice if you need to.

Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.

Investing, Personal Finance Basic , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

A Simple Graph that explains… where to invest your money

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The No. 1 personal finance question being asked online is “I have $XXX in saving, where should I put it?” or “What should I do with my term deposit?”. People who are unfamiliar with personal finance usually have no idea where to investment their money except term deposit and property (Oh, the old Kiwi dream). While property seems out of reach and interest rate on term deposit are hitting all time low, Kiwis are looking for another way to invest for their future.

Before you jumping into the world of investing…

You should put your money to invest after you pay off your consumer/personal debt, join KiwiSaver, and have an emergency fund. I believe you are not in the position of investing if you still haven’t got your financial basic sorted out.

The most important question

The first thing you’ll need to work out is How long can you leave the money in the investment? or how long before you will need to use that money?

If you are saving for a new car in 3 years, then 3 years is your answer. If you are saving for retirement and you are 30, 10+ years will be your answer.

Make sure you have money set aside for emergency before you invest. You don’t want to be in a situation where you plan to invest in the stock market for 8 years, some emergency happen in year 2 and you are forced to sell your investment at a loss.

Once you’ve worked out the time, apply that to the graph below.

where to invest HMobile-friendly version

Example

Let’s say if you plan to invest for 6 years, according to the graph, you may want to consider invest 60% of that money into growth assets such as stock, property, ETF, and index fund, while the other 40% investment into Bond or Dividend stocks.

If you invest for your retirement in 20 years, you may want to have a portfolio with 5-10% bond and the rest with stock.

On the other hand, if you wish to use the money to buy a car in 2 years. It’s best to put it in a term deposit.

Break down your plan

You may have multiple plans for your money, such as $3000 for travel next year, $12000 for a new car in 30 months, and $20000 for the first home in 8 years.

You need to apply those plan individually to the graph.

$3000 travel fund in saving account

$12000 car fund in term deposit

$20000 in a 10:90 mix portfolio while you keep adding more into the investment every month.

What’s next?

I will explain the basic idea of this graph, the mix of investment in this post and how to apply risk tolerance in the next post.

The timeline and investment ratio on the graph are based on my own study and conventional wisdom. Investment suggestion is based on neutral risk tolerance. Investment product listed on the graph are based on popularity, ease of access in New Zealand and a bit of personal preference.

Just a reminder, this graph is for GENERAL ADVISE ONLY. Your own situation may be different. Please thoroughly research everything you read here and seek professional advice if you need to.

Email thesmartandlazy@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @thesmartandlazy if you have any questions.