Market & Portfolio Update - August 2020
Global share markets rose nearly 5% in August as investors continue to digest news about ongoing vaccine developments and look for returns in a low interest rate environment.
Australian shares rose over 3% as the Covid-19 outbreak in Victoria eased. This resulted in another month of overall positive returns for funds, even as some uncertainty remains for the general economic backdrop.
For our Booster clients, the portion of members' global shares investments managed by California-based Fisher Investments added value by outperforming the general return on global share markets. This came largely from Fisher’s allocation to technology companies, such as Apple and sales software provider Salesforce. These both benefited from sales being supported by global customers looking to technology solutions to help them and their businesses through the pandemic.
Market & Portfolio Update - April 2022
Global share markets continued their choppy start to 2022 during April.For New Zealand based investors, a fall in the NZ dollar played an important role in helping offset the volatility global share markets experienced. The NZ dollar fell against most major currencies supporting the returns of unhedged overseas assets (assets that are free to move with exchange rates). As a result, ‘unhedged’ overseas investments fell by only 1.8% for NZ based investors.
The KiwiSaver Gender Divide – Why are women saving less and what can be done to combat this?
Recent data shows that, on average, women have 20% less in their KiwiSavers than men. The gap being at its largest between men and women in their 40s and 50s. There are a few factors that come into play causing this divide and although it will take years to achieve equality, there are ways in which we can be proactive to help close the gap. As of August 2021, the gender pay gap is at 9.1% in New Zealand, a decrease of about 0.4% from 2020’s stats.