sharetrader
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 19
  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Posts
    10

    Question Another newbie seeking advice

    Hi all.

    Just a bit of background on my position. About to turn 35, married, no children (none planned - had the snip, so any unplanned ones will be rather awkward ). Over the last couple of years we have sold everything we own and changed our lifestyle, where we are basically full time backpackers travelling the world. Current plan is to do this until we no longer enjoy it, so may be 5 years, 10 years, 20 years... who knows? Currently we've been in Asia since February.

    I work remotely and after living/travel expenses, we are currently clearing about $1500-2000 a month to save/invest. Currently have around $6000 in Superlife (more on this below), $3000 in a Kiwisaver scheme and about $320,000 in savings. Obviously there is little return on the savings, and I am planning on moving it into investments over time. My appetite for risk is moderate - I am happy to invest in shares, but I currently don't have the time to do the serious research required for hunting down individual shares to invest in and I am happy with what ETFs offer. I may possibly look at a rental property at some point next year, but I am not currently that interested in the current ratio of "rental/capital return vs stress/hassle of being an overseas landlord".

    6 months ago I decided to get "skin in the game" with the share market and set up a Superlife scheme putting in $1000 a month. I went for Superlife due to the low(ish) fees and the ability to drip feed monthly. I tried to spread my investment a bit, and went with the following breakdown:

    NZ Dividend ETF - $150 pm
    NZ 50 Portfolio ETF - $250 pm
    NZ Property ETF - $150 pm
    Aust Property ETF - $150 pm
    Aust Midcap ETF - $100 pm
    US S&P 500 ETF - $200 pm

    As is to be expected, some of these have done better than others, but I am in it for the long-term and happy with that spread so far.

    I want to up my contribution to $2000 (or just over) per month, and was hoping some more experienced folk could run their eyes over it and make any recommendations or suggestions at other options to look at. I will provide a brief explanation of my thinking for each of the changes:

    Increase NZ Div ETF by $250 pm - I like the thought of high dividend shares, both for the returns coming in and them being a bit less volatile.
    Add Aust Dividend ETF $200 pm - as above, but diversifying into the Oz market as well


    Increase Aust mid cap $100 pm - I want to increase investment into the Oz market - happy to change this one, as the dividend one above is obviously increasing exposure to Oz already. Put my choice of Aust mid-cap over the other Oz options down to a newbie doubling down on his currently best performing investment, as opposed to anything particularly scientific


    Add Emerging Markets ETF $150 pm
    Add Europe ETF $150 pm
    Add Asia Pacific ETF $150 pm

    The 3 above are simply for diversifying into other markets. Emerging markets has a question mark due to it having higher fees than the other options. Asia Pacific is actually a fairly narrow scoped ETF, with almost 60% of it in Japan (and 17.5 which is yet more investment in Oz).


    Increase NZ Prop by $150 pm
    Increase Oz Prop by $150 pm

    These two I would like some advice on. I want to diversify into property at some point, preferably without sinking all my money into a single rental property. Are these property ETFs really achieving that, or are they considered more like "just another share" (albeit in a different sector)?

    Are there any other ETFs that people would recommend adding/replacing any of the above?

    These are the ones available via Superlife: http://superlife.co.nz/investments/investment-options

    I am also happy for advice on other investment areas to look at (in a year or so I may have the time/inclination to "do my own research" on individual shares, but they aren't really of interest right now).

    Thanks in advance!

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Posts
    581

    Default

    Hi there

    Id be reluctant to offer any "advice" as such regarding your asset allocation, but I notice it seems to be heavily weighted towards NZ & Austrailan investments. Any reason for this other than potentially higher dividends?

    Just for comparison my super life is currently: 80% overseas shares (unhedged) 10% s&p500 2.5% NZ50 2.5% Aust mid and 5% fixed interest/bonds.

    For me my focus is longer term growth outside of NZ (since I live and work in NZ I'm already pretty dependent on the local economy etc etc)

    Good luck with the travels btw!
    Last edited by huxley; 22-08-2016 at 06:03 PM. Reason: phone hands

  3. #3
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Posts
    10

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by huxley View Post
    Hi there

    Id be reluctant to offer any "advise" as such regarding your asset allocation, but I notice it seems to be heavily weighted towards NZ & Austrailan investments. Any reason for this other than potentially higher dividends?

    Just for comparison my super life is currently: 80% overseas shares (unhedged) 10% s&p500 2.5% NZ50 2.5% Aust mid and 5% fixed interest/bonds.

    For me my focus is longer term growth outside of NZ (since I live and work in NZ I'm already pretty dependent on the local economy etc etc)

    Good luck with the travels btw!
    Thanks for the reply - that was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, rather than specific allocation advice - just pointing out things I might be missing/not looking at or questioning the reasons behind those I am.

    Higher dividends was certainly part of my thinking for Oz/NZ. Although I earn in NZ dollars, I don't really live there at present and don't have money invested locally in a house or anything, so I am happy with having a reasonable percent going into NZ markets.

    I had been tossing up between the increases to the two property funds and increasing the amount allocated to the US S&P ETF, but had been erring on the side of increasing the property ones now and adding to the US one some time next year. I hadn't had a close look at the Overseas Unhedged fund, mainly because I thought those Sector Funds had higher fees than the ETFs when I last looked at them, but looking again it appears they don't, so I will have another good look through them. On a side note, the Superlife web-site is terrible when it comes to finding information on the ETF/Sector funds - there are numerous pages that list them, but you have to keep switching between sections in the hope of finding one that has a link to the actual details on the fund and then do the same to try to track down the fees. It looks like the website was created by someone who was being paid per page and wanted to milk it for all they could.

  4. #4
    Guru justakiwi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Location
    Canterbury
    Posts
    2,569

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Demilich View Post
    On a side note, the Superlife web-site is terrible when it comes to finding information on the ETF/Sector funds - there are numerous pages that list them, but you have to keep switching between sections in the hope of finding one that has a link to the actual details on the fund and then do the same to try to track down the fees. It looks like the website was created by someone who was being paid per page and wanted to milk it for all they could.
    I completely agree. I am a newbie here so trying to soak up as much info as possible. I read your post earlier today so went to check out Superlife to see how their ETF funds compare to Smartshares. From what I can tell it seems the Superlife ETF funds all invest directly into the Smartshares funds. I was trying to find out what their fees are etc to do a comparison but their site totally sucks. I couldn't find the information I wanted anywhere so just gave up. Businesses don't seem to realise that people often judge them by their websites. I'm always hesitant to do business with a company that can't put time and effort into creating a professional, user friendly, efficient website.

  5. #5
    Guru
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Posts
    3,025

    Default

    Justakiwi - for background, the NZX, who one Smartshares, purchased Superlife a couple of years ago so I think moved most of their index funds to the SmartShare ones.

    Unfortunately they haven't got around to updating the website since it was created back in the paleolithic era.

    With new competition coming to Kiwisaver in the form of Simplicity.kiwi it will be interesting to see if they respond.

  6. #6
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Posts
    10

    Default

    Unfortunately it's probably worth the hassle, as Superlife appears to have much lower management fees for the fund management - for example, NZ Div is .20 on Superlife and .54 through SmartShares themselves. I had a couple of the links open, so here they are:

    http://superlife.co.nz/investments/i...ent-portfolios that's a link where you can look at the actual details of the investment options
    http://superlife.co.nz/superannuation/fees - link to the fees

    Be warned, signing up to Superlife can also be a bit of a pain in the ass. But their products themselves seem pretty good (as far as the options available in the NZ ETF market).

  7. #7
    Guru justakiwi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Location
    Canterbury
    Posts
    2,569

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Demilich View Post
    Unfortunately it's probably worth the hassle, as Superlife appears to have much lower management fees for the fund management - for example, NZ Div is .20 on Superlife and .54 through SmartShares themselves. I had a couple of the links open, so here they are:

    http://superlife.co.nz/investments/i...ent-portfolios that's a link where you can look at the actual details of the investment options
    http://superlife.co.nz/superannuation/fees - link to the fees

    Be warned, signing up to Superlife can also be a bit of a pain in the ass. But their products themselves seem pretty good (as far as the options available in the NZ ETF market).
    Mmmm ... do you know if there is a Smartshare fee on top of that? I can't find it now but when I was reading up on Smartshares the other day, some of their ETFs are invested directly into Vanguard ETFs which means you need to add a Vanguard fee into the mix. I wonder if you invested into those funds via Superlife whether you would then have to take into account both a Smartshare and a Vanguard management fee.

    Too many questions and too many options. Unlike you, I'm a very very small investor and brand new to all this so I find myself overthinking everything. I think I just need to pick one then stop looking at all the others

  8. #8
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Posts
    581

    Default

    The superlife website is certainly due a refresh! Remember it was purchased by the NZX in 2015 and has slowly been changed.. but is a long way behind the smart shares site..

    The overseas share fund ( both hedged and unhedged) passively tracks the MSCI world index. Before Superlife merged with NZX it was managed by a company called State Street investments but now I see it's made up from several of the smart shares ETFs ( this will be because it's more profitable for NZX to use funds it owns).
    Last edited by huxley; 22-08-2016 at 06:03 PM. Reason: phone hands

  9. #9
    Guru
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Wellington, New Zealand
    Posts
    4,876

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by justakiwi View Post
    Mmmm ... do you know if there is a Smartshare fee on top of that? I can't find it now but when I was reading up on Smartshares the other day, some of their ETFs are invested directly into Vanguard ETFs which means you need to add a Vanguard fee into the mix. I wonder if you invested into those funds via Superlife whether you would then have to take into account both a Smartshare and a Vanguard management fee.

    Too many questions and too many options. Unlike you, I'm a very very small investor and brand new to all this so I find myself overthinking everything. I think I just need to pick one then stop looking at all the others
    I actually queried Superlife on this one. What they told me is that the smartshare fee is on top of the superlife one but the superlife one is then rebated. IE you pay the highest fee but they do not double dip. Or something to that effect. Do not quote me on it but I called because I was with Smart KIWI for my kiwisaver before superlife took over and was concerned at double dipping. But after the call I my fears were assuaged.
    Hope that makes sense. That was for the FNZ and OZY, not too sure how they do the Vanguard ones but there may be a fee on top of a fee there as there is not cross subsidy.... ie did not the NZX (operator of smartshares) take over Superlife or vice versa....

  10. #10
    Guru justakiwi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Location
    Canterbury
    Posts
    2,569

    Default

    OK, apparently Smartshares have a standard PIR of 28%, whereas Superlife has multi rates and I would be able to select 17.5% (my correct rate).

    For somebody with a very small investment like me, would that be a major advantage, or would the 28% really not be a big deal?

    (I probably should start a new thread to ask this - sorry Demilich!)

    Never mind ... I just found out that Superlife charges an annual fee of $33 (on top of their management fee) so that's a deal breaker for me. Smartshares wins.
    Last edited by justakiwi; 22-08-2016 at 04:33 PM.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •