Should you self-manage your super?

SMSF expert chat

A serious question which deserves a serious answer.

I spoke to SMSF specialist Darren Kingdon of Kingdon Financial to get this thoughts at the video below:

You can get a copy of Darren's book here.

This is how to treat your long-term investments

'Well 3' investments

See here for more (or click on the image below):

Listings begin to pick up

Listings picking up

SQM Research reported a +3.9 per cent increase in total listings in May 2020.

The increase was driven by older stock not selling, according to Louis Christopher of SQM.

Compared to a year ago listings are still -12 per cent lower, with all capital cities seeing less stock.

Asking prices were +10.2 per cent higher year-on-year for houses, and +2.5 per cent higher for units.

SQM's media release can be found here.

Consumer confidence up for record 9th week

Confidence gains

Consumer confidence jumped from a reading of 92.7 to 98.3, making for a record 9th consecutive gain.

Current economic conditions soared +15.7 per cent, and future financial conditions expectations are now closing in on their long-run average as the economy reopens for business. 

Recession locked in?

Australia recorded its greatest ever current account surplus in Q1 of $8.4 billion, driven by international trade disruption and a sharp drop in imports. 

The export side of the ledger remained very strong, meaning a contribution of +0.5pps to GDP in the first quarter of the year. 

There's still a chance, therefore, that GDP could print flat in Q1 and Australia could dodge a technical recession.

However, there was also a sharp drop in inventories which will still quite likely pull us into negative territory.

In other news, net foreign debt has declined since September 2019. 

Company profits remained remarkably strong, overwhelmingly due to mining earnings.

And wages and salaries disbursed were unchanged at +0.0 per cent, or +3.8 per cent over the year.

The wrap

Overall, we'll have to wait and see what the National Accounts bring, but it could be tantalisingly close to a flat result for Q1, although Q2 will obviously be very sharply negative.

More importantly for households, light is being seen at the end of the tunnel thanks to the excellent containment of COVID-19, and therefore economic growth, consumption, and employment should resume in Q3. 

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HSBC cut its 2-year fixed rate mortgage to 2.09 per cent yesterday.

The Reserve Bank Board will meet this afternoon and is widely expected to keep the cash rate on hold at 0.25 per cent. 

This is why the 10,000-hour rule matters

10,000 hours to mastery

See here for more (or click on the image below):

Thoughts on the housing stimulus

Stimulus for housing

I had a discussion with Scutty and Nadine Blayney as ausbiz TV here:

Housing values edge lower but resilient

Housing steady in May

There was a marginal -0.4 per cent decline in Aussie housing values in May according to CoreLogic:

Source: CoreLogic

The pullback was mainly driven by an unsurprising easing in the top quartile of the Melbourne market (-1.3 per cent), following its blistering run since the May 2019 election result.

Source: CoreLogic

Listings confidence and buyer activity are both now increasing.

Overall stock levels remain so low that housing market prices are expected to remain resilient. 

Source: CoreLogic

The Coalition government is expected to unveil its housing market stimulus later in the week.

The details haven't yet been clarified, but historically such stimulus packages have been effective in boosting the housing market.

CoreLogic's full monthly report can be found here. 

Podcast Episode #8: The magic of rebalancing

The magic of rebalancing

Click here to listen to Episode #8 of our Low Rates High Returns podcast (or you can click on the image below):

You can listen to the earlier episodes here, or you can also tune in at Soundcloud, Stitcher, or Spotify.

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