Expensive Mistakes
by Jim Parker
by Jim Parker
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by Jim Parker
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At some stage, most of us will be faced with difficult decisions on aged care either personally or for a family member. Entry into a Residential Aged Care Facility can have a very significant impact on our emotional state and financial position.
DID YOU KNOW?
Source: Dept of Health and Ageing, Australian Bureau of Statistics
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“Over a ten-year period commencing on January 1, 2008, and ending on December 31, 2017, the S&P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs and expenses.”
That is the bet Warren Buffett made with New York fund manager, Ted Seides from Protege Partners, five years ago. The Oracle of Omaha (Buffett) put his money on a S&P index fund, while Seides has backed five fund of hedge funds.
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UK newspaper The Observer staged an experiment, pitting a panel of market professionals and a group of students against a ginger feline called Orlando in a competition to see who would have the most success in picking stocks in 2012.1
Each team invested a notional £5,000 in five companies from the FTSE All-Share index at the start of the year. After every three months, they could exchange any stocks, replacing them with others from the index.
The professionals used their experience, insights and market knowledge to select stocks. The cat’s method was rather less elaborate. Orlando simply threw a toy mouse onto a grid of numbers allocated to stocks in the index.
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- by Weston Wellington (US)
Judging by the headlines in the financial press, investors spent much of the past year anxiously awaiting one calamity after another that failed to occur. The plunge off the so-called fiscal cliff was averted. The euro zone did not fall apart. China’s economy and stock market did not crash. The bond market did not implode. The re-election of President Barack Obama did not derail the US market. The “flash glitch” in early August did not lead to further trading disruptions. Doomsday did not arrive on December 21, as some interpreters of the Mayan calendar suggested it would.
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Earlier this month we witnessed the largest ever lotto draw in Australia, with a Jackpot of $100 Million and a total prize pool of over $178 Million ($178,529,037.79 to be exact)!
I’ve never bought a lotto ticket myself… and I knew any chance of winning would be extremely slim. But with the lure of the $100 Million I thought, why not try this time just for fun.
Well the bad news (for me) is that I didn’t win the big prize. Four lucky people DID share the jackpot, winning themselves a cool $29 Million each!
Now it wasn’t all bad news for me, as my Quickpick of 12 games had one line of numbers with some matches… this qualified me for the Division 7 prize! I couldn’t believe my luck at learning this and when I went to the newsagent to pick up my winnings I found out I’d won… $13.70. Not bad in my first lotto game. Perhaps the cost of the ticket of $14.20 made this less impressive.
Upon reflection, the statistician in me wanted to know what my actual chances of winning were. So I did the calculations and came up with the following results.
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The Reserve Bank of Australia has cut interest rates by 0.25%.
While this has various implications for businesses, exchange rates, residential property and our economy overall, the impact on households is direct through mortgage rates. And the big question is how much of the cut will be passed onto borrowers by the banks.
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