Self managed Kiwisaver

I have been interested in a self manged kiwi saver to buy shares and cut out the middle man fund manger. The closest that comes to it is Craigs investments partners kiwistart select.
Lets you buy shares in blue chip companies most indexes and NZ property trusts.

Anyone using this scheme at the moment or have any comments about it?

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Originally Posted by bung5

I have been interested in a self manged kiwi saver to buy shares and cut out the middle man fund manger. The closest that comes to it is Craigs investments partners kiwistart select.
Lets you buy shares in blue chip companies most indexes and NZ property trusts.

Anyone using this scheme at the moment or have any comments about it?

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I have been keen to give them a go. But have yet to register with Criags.

I am currently using superlife kiwisaver. They are pretty good, they have about 10 pools you can invest in and selecting your own weighting.

I would be interested in hearing from someone in it as well.

Australia has a very big self managed fund industry though their rules are a lot more relaxed (you can put you holiday home into it for example). As NZ gets bigger, I would assume our rules will have to adopt in the same manner. From memory (I bought a few mags last time I was over there) it only made sense when your super fund was over $100k and ideally $300k+

Belgarion, was similar for me but the incentives are too good not be in at the minimum. Did you know about the craigs self management option? Its not ideal but surely it will expand the stocks ?

Yes I use Craigs self managed kiwisaver. Fee is higher I think it is 1.5% but very flexible. You can buy and sell stock At the moment my funds are going into the Nasdaq QQQ. You could say just buy apple on the drip feed. They have a list on their website of what you can buy. I use it to compliment my stock holding. My wife pays into superlife, as Lou says their is some flexibility there and their fees are low

Can you buy and sell online instantly ?

no not instantly usually over a few days

I had investigated this option with Craigs in 2009 and the broker was not very keen due to small number of scripts you are allowed to buy in the scheme. The charges are hefty - 1.25% brokerage+1.25% custodial fee+$60/annum admin fee! Taxes are not included if you make a gain! I quickly gave up and glad I did it!

yeah that does look costly. I obtained a list of securities from a broker and there doesn't seem to be many apart from some major global blue chips.
Need to start lobbying some of the KS providers into this space

Been wondering where to post some ramblings and this dusty corner might be the place.

Some background might be in order, when I first started working full time, I signed up for ASB kiwi saver and was in the growth plan.

Checking the fees as of today they charge .7% annual fund charge and $2.5 a month administration charge but I have a feeling it used to be higher.

But apart from the crudest allocations it gave absolutely no transparency on what they were investing in. This rankled a bit as I prefer when I can at least attempt to understand an investment.

So 3 years ago I said stuff it, if I cant understand something ie what equities my kiwi-saver is in? What is exactly in a growth 'unit'? Is there any leverage in the fund? ultimately should I really be trusting it with my retirement savings so went into the all cash ASB fund. I had a feeling that passive ETFs and stock bros were driving a reinforcing cycle of valuation excesses with opaque Chinese stocks (Alibaba) and overvalued 'growth stocks (i.e. TSLA) and all sorts of junk in between, i.e. junk stock is bought by ETF flows, junk stock increase in values and are allocated more ETF flows and one day it will unwind untidily.

Now generally it has been a hard lesson for me with a huge opportunity cost involved with hording cash over the last booming years of the stock market.

However in March last year (Covid dip) I thought brilliant now is the time to flex on that 100% cash kiwi-saver balance and take off my tin foil hat and get involved in the land of the living.

But where to put it. The only self selected kiwi-saver I could find was Craig's (hence connection to the thread).

The fees are still pretty eyewatering, you would think as they have more assets under management they could ease off on the fees a little:
1.25% annual management fee ( $0 to $250,000 balances).
$45 year annual admin fee.
1.25% when you buy or sell a equity.

And they do cramp my penchant for gutter stocks by limiting the equities that can be bought with the majority on listed on the NZX but to be honest that is probably not the worst thing. You may recognise a few cheapies in there.

NZX=
ATM, ABA, AIA, CNU, CVT, CEN, EBO, FPH, FBU,FSF, FRE, GNE, GTK, IFT, MFT, MCY, MEL, MET, MPG, NPH, NZX, OCA, POT PPH, RBD, RYM, SAN, SCL, SKC, SKT, SML, SPK, STU, SUM, TPW, WHS, TLT, THL, VCT, VGL, ZEL,ARG, GMT, IPL,KPG, LLC, PCT, PFI

ASX =
AGL, AMC, AMP, ANN, ANZ, APA, BXB, BHP, CWY, COH, CBA, CPU, CSL, HE, GMG, JHX, LNK, MPL, NAB, ORG, PGH, QBE, RHC, RMD, RIO, STO, SEK, SHL, S32, SYD, TLS, TCL, WES, WBC, WPL, WOW, XRO

and a smaller number on the LSE and NYSE and quite a few funds.

So that is quite limiting.

I don't think you can sign up for DRIPs and you set your investment direction i.e. where your pay check contributions go and any dividends you receive are just added to pay check contributions so how much is bought each month can vary a bit.

To be honest 1 year in I haven't sold a stock so not sure how long that will take but apart from the fees and limited stocks to splash my money on I have quite enjoyed the ability to control my kiwi-saver portfolio. Worth the extra expense knowing that any mistakes are my own.

and also just wish some other outfits will get into this space and make a bit more competition on the fees etc.