Financial Awareness Week

The best time to get your finances under control and set your long term goals is now. Financial Awareness Week is on next week in New Zealand with events around the country. Here in Christchurch there is to be a stall at the Northlands Mall manned by members of the IFA (Institute of Financial Advisers). This is your opportunity to ask questions that may have been bugging you and to get started on your financial journey....

“When you need professional advice, get it from professionals not your friends.”Life’s Little Instruction Book, Vol II, HJ Brown Jr.

Increased Interest in Life Insurance Due to Swine Flu

Apparently life insurance has increased in demand in the US due to the swine flu.

Dr. Steven Weisbart, the author of a 2006 study based on recent epidemics in the US, studies plagues, pandemics and terrorism for the Insurance Information Institute. He has said that the life insurance industry could endure a swine flu surge, even in the remote likelihood of an outbreak comparable to the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic that killed two million people.

Swine Flu and the World Economy

As if investors didn't have enough to worry about we now have concerns about another flu pandemic - swine flu. This is causing concern in global markets following deaths in Mexico and its spread to various parts of the world.

Global sharemarkets have been nervous by concerns about its economic impact. And the impact on economic and financial markets of the world would be significant. Coming at a time when the global economy is already weakened, pandemic fears have already caused nervousness in sharemarkets making more weakness possible. BUT, following the experience with SARS and bird flu the world is now better prepared for a viral pandemic. The advice from some economists is to be alert, but not alarmed.

Your Family Budget is Not Just for Rainy Days

A family budget is basically a list of your intended expenses and expected income. The aim is to ensure that your expenses or outgoings are lower than your income.

This quote from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield says it all:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six - result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six - result misery.”

Unfortunately these basic fundamentals of family budgeting have been largely forgotten over recent times. In the last 15 years we have experienced a period of excess where most of us were spending 110% of our income. Now that the value of our homes has dropped we can no longer use our mortgage as an ATM. And reality has hit – result misery.

It’s time to get back to basics. Bring out the family budget forms, get the family together and work through a plan to reduce spending and find ways to increase income

Some Good News Stories in a Time of Recession.

With headlines daily telling us of all the bad news is it little wonder that we can fail to see the positives about what has happened in the world? We know that the media tend to focus on the negative, after all bad news sells best. So are there actually some positives in this climate called recession? Let’s take a look at some good stories.

• 
  Market valuations are attractive. Share valuations in general are seen to be at either normal historical levels or at very attractive levels. We’ve all heard from people such as Warren Buffett about buying when others are selling. Of course not everyone will have the spare cash to spend at this time but if you do it’s a great opportunity.


• 
  Banks return to old values. It used to be that banks stood for prudence, risk management, control and transparency. Having deviated from the old values we all understood of banks they are once again returning to the principles which will, at the end of the day, leave the banking system stronger.


• 
  Spending and saving has a reality check. In the last couple of decades many Western countries have experienced a huge increase in indebtedness coupled with a dramatic drop in saving rates. This has been brought on by the mindset of wanting everything now rather than having to wait, and a perceived view that increases in house and share prices would offset the failure to save.


• 
  In the short term this will be a painful adjustment for some but over time this will be a major positive. Personal finances will become more stable and controllable. “A deeper, potentially positive, meaning to the decline in consumer spending is that people are now moving back to more prudent, income-based lifestyles” said Dan Richards, a US based adviser.


• 
  A synchronized global response by central bankers. In sharp contrast to historical responses from the central banks of the past there has been a coordinated and cooperative response to the world economic situation. There appears to be a resolute commitment from all parties to do whatever it takes to keep the financial system afloat and to provide the stimulus to get economic growth restarted.


• 
  A drop in interest rates as our own OCR drops to a record low of 3.5%. Obviously good news for those with mortgages but not so good for investors. The catch here is that many borrowers have placed their mortgages on fixed rates and now a rush to break these terms has kept banks busy. Breaking fixed rates can be very expensive but if you do the sums it may be beneficial to do so.
  
  And…
  Did you know that the following businesses all started in a recession? Yes, that’s right spanning the Great Depression which started with Black Tuesday October 1929, the hard times in the 50s and the more recent recession post 9/11 these companies started in business: HP, Sports Illustrated, Burger King Corp and Wikipedia Foundation.
  

Is the Economic Glass Half Full or Half Empty in 2009?

The glass half full -- Optimism about 2009 is that the current cycle is similar to others in its essential features. Similarities such as economic cycles are a way to wash out the excesses and restore imbalances of the preceding years. And a new cycle is created.

The glass half empty -- Pessimism for 2009 is that no past cycle has been so heavily supported by monetary authorities making regulation and government ownership a restriction on future innovation. No past cycle has had so much debt held by so many. And no past cycle has been affected so much by global events which have stripped away the benefits of global diversification.

Is this the start of a new financial era? I’m sure none of us really wants to go back to the greedy excesses of the past years only to have a repeat of the last year.