I think you've missed my point. I'll be more specific. How do you know we are in dodgy "high risk" times? Over 2 years ago there was plenty saying the market was over valued when the DOW was at 17K and their main motivation was how far the DOW has risen since the GFC of 2008. I know people that for the past 10 years of that major event had chosen to sit on the side hoping the market would re-correct. DOW at 10K, "Nah it's gonna go down", DOW at 13K, "Nope.." DOW at 17K "It's WAY flying high", DOW at 25K "????". My point is who is so sure? Because when you sit on the side lines, eventually you'll miss gains that you'll never recoup.

I have little or no experience owning NZ equities (as you can tell i'm biased towards US markets). The reason is the basic principal owning NZ shares (or NZ share investing in general) is the over emphasis of dividend payment. It's a logic I could never understand from a tax efficiency perspective. Why do NZ share investors focus on dividends when they are taxed? vs if the corporation would hold the after tax income on the balance sheet, which increases it's book value, and thus increases the share price which = a tax free capital gain to the shareholder. It's a basic fundamental question I ask with The Warehouse Group shares having a dividend paying policy. I mean for decades, i've seen their shares stay basically at the same price as when they went public. Because they pay out their cash flows in dividends, then go to borrow more $ for capital expansion ; or even worse, issue more shares (causing share dilution). Anyways, will be interesting to see what CGT would do to the NZ investing environment.