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Noel News  Merry Christmas! Most investors have great intentions. So why is it so many fail? Simple. They lack the long-term perspective needed to help get them through short-term chaos. KEITH FITZGERALD Welcome to our last newsletter of the year! And what a year it’s been. Volatile share markets, property markets in a downturn, inflation roaring, a war in Ukraine, interest rates going sky-high and a change of government. That’s just a bit of it. There is so much to talk about, which I will do in various newsletters as 2023 goes by. But today, because this is our last newsletter for the year and it’s a bit late to be putting new strategies in place, I will focus on two topics – both of which could have a huge effect on your finances: The first is the psychology of investment, and the second is the huge increase in scams which are ...

 Noel News Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better. JIM ROHN   Welcome to our December newsletter, the second last one for the year… Unfortunately, I’m a bit short of Christmas cheer as I write this. Monday last week was our 42nd wedding anniversary and we had prepared to celebrate it by having dinner at home and then by spending the rest of the week in Sydney. It was not to be. Around lunchtime I walked into the garage and, coming out a bit too quickly, tripped over a skirting board. There was a horrible pain, and I thought I had broken my ankle in two. The family called an ambulance, which whisked me to the emergency department at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. After an X-Ray and a CT scan, I was diagnosed with a fractured ankle and was admitted as a patient with an operation to ...

Noel News “First we’re children to our parents then parents to our children then parents to our parents then children to our children.” MILTON GREENBLATT Good morning I’m writing this from Los Angeles, where we are visiting our son James and his family. It’s our first overseas trip for three years, and nothing much has changed in America except the horrendous prices, due to the surging Greenback. The United Airlines flight ex-Sydney was uneventful, and it was great to discover that masks are no longer required – neither on the aeroplane nor in the airports. On the advice of friends, we invested $90 for two Apple AirTags which sit inside your suitcases and enable them to be tracked anywhere in the world. Luckily, our luggage arrived on time, but it was good to know that the AirTags were there as a backup. We did have an initial scare when we ...

Noel News I am convinced that life is a game where no one need be a loser… but I am equally as certain that one cannot participate in this mysterious act of living with any hope of satisfaction unless one understands a few simple rules. OG MANDINO The Greatest Success in the World   Happy New Year? Good morning, I’m writing this on Friday 8 July – the beginning of a new financial year. I’ll start off by talking about markets because it’s been a pretty tough year for superannuation, and there are many scary headlines warning us how bad things may get in the following 12 months. It’s been a particularly bad year for my own superannuation fund which is down by 33% mainly due to exposure in international managed funds who had a big exposure to companies like Flutter and Zillow in their portfolios. In just one year ...

Noel News Whoever said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend never owned a dog. I am writing this newsletter at lunchtime on Tuesday 14th June while the stock market is being smashed. It’s one of the worst days I have experienced – it’s always a shock to the system to see so much red ink on the screen. I guess all we can do is proceed with confidence in the knowledge that the share market has always been a good long-term investment. Most of my portfolio is now in index funds or various managed funds which gives me an interest in companies like Amazon, MasterCard, Zillow, BHP and the Australian banks. Remember, if the index is down 5% you are effectively buying the assets that make up the index at a 5% discount. I know it’s hard to cop, but the alternative is to panic and cash out and ...

 Noel News Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. ALBERT EINSTEIN Welcome to another newsletter. When I wrote the last one, I had no idea that a war in Ukraine would be taking place by the end of February. These events, and all the scary media that accompanies them, terrify people. Naturally this has been accompanied by massive falls in markets all around the world. As usual, I’m getting a raft of emails from people asking whether they should quit their investments before it’s too late. The other question many are asking is what likely effect the situation in the Ukraine may have on stock markets.   It is normal to feel apprehensive when the market has a downturn, especially when accompanied by the threat of war. I understand that. But I am comforted by the latest research from my long-term friend, ...