When talking about financial advice, it all comes down to price – particularly when talking about your super fund fees. Or does it? Do you drive the cheapest car you can find? Eat the cheapest fast food? Live in the cheapest house?
For most people, probably not – you make decisions based on the benefits we’ll receive. For example, knowing you’ll get from A to B in your car is a good start…similarly, getting advice which provides you with certainty about your goals is crucial for your peace of mind. Some super fund providers tell you that they will provide the best advice to you by speaking to a Call Centre ‘adviser’, who is only qualified to talk about their own product. Similarly, some banks tell you that they offer the best advice in-house, where their advisers are only authorized to offer their own bank owned product.
At JustInvest we believe that price is important – but so is quality & service. We offer financial advice that focuses firstly on strategy, then structure, and finally performance – a process which provides peace of mind. After that, enjoying the ride is a benefit which we all like to have!
Also, with the recent roller coaster ride in stockmarkets, it’s not hard to imagine you’d be concerned about your investments. How your money is being managed is even more important during times of global stockmarket volatility. So that’s great that you’ve got the cheapest super fund money can buy…..now, what’s going on with their investment strategy?
We’ve had a number of clients contact us, some asking whether this volatility is a precursor to another global financial crisis; some wondering how long we can expect market uncertainty to last, some asking if it’s a good time to buy investments cheaply. However the answers to these questions rely very much on your own individual circumstances.
If you don’t want any financial advice, that’s fine. However for our clients that receive advice, turbulent investment markets can present them with a new range of strategies, which aren’t prominent in steadily increasing markets. Some of these include*:
- efficient use of capital losses
- commencement of an income stream
- splitting super contributions
- transferring assets in-specie
- selling a business
- gifting
- super re-contributions
- overseas pension transfers
So if you’re not paying fees, you’re probably not getting advice….and if you do have an adviser, but aren’t having conversations about the above issues, it also doesn’t sound like you’re getting advice! For more information about JustInvest and our services, please contact us on 08 9267 3488.
(*with thanks to Keat Chew, Head of Tech Services, NetWealth 2011 )
