Key issues in my books when evaluating investments:

1) Diversification is bad!:

The more stocks you own, the more you go towards the average returns of the market index. Naturally this is not possible to buy every stock and why would anyone? Nearly ALL registered managed funds (not hedged funds) operate in a way of diversification to the max. So how many stocks in a portfolio one should hold? Well to answer this question I look to Warren Buffet & Charlie Munger's view. Here's is word:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charl...161820502.html

He also describes the problem of fund managers thinking they're hot shot for merely doing nothing (because any dummy can do it... it's not a skillful move). I see direct parallels with how NZ Kiwi Saver funds operate this way by taking contributions, use their US broker account (which pays no commissions on trades) and buys say the Vanguard ETF S&P500 'ticker VOO' which has a 0.08% pa mgt fee but at the NZ end, they tack on a lofty 10 or 20 times figure on that % for the Kiwi Saver investors.

2) Hold USD - after all it's the global trading currency and the standard metric that everything is compared to. So if you're going to buy stocks traded on the US exchanges (of those that are global companies that are listed there) - they only accept USD. Keep it in USD and don't try to exchange it back to NZD etc. Canadian brokers have long provided dual currency reporting for their clients to avoid the need for exchange rate conversions.

3) Tax TAX TAX! matters big time. You look at all these fancy prospectus from fund managers to corporate listings on the NZX. They throw in figures like EBITDA (which again, Munger claims to be the most stupid thing ever taught in business class at universities around the world).

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charl...164228068.html

NZ equity market maybe 1% of the global market? Why restrict your investment choice to NZ and carry on higher risk ; thinking you're doing a great job? When you look at investments around the world, you have to factor issues like taxation for which EBITDA distorts things by excluding it. BTW, when Berkshire does their annual report, they report figures NET of taxes.

There's a lot of factors I can pick out - but then again I can assure you most people that contribute to Kiwi Saver have never heard of Warren Buffet before. Even financial advisors i've spoken to in NZ don't care about what Buffet says as 'they are beyond the scope of how NZ residents can invest'.