News Round Up: August 8

New investment Blog; Sovereign expands Select; MED clarifies regulatory funding options; Latest monthly market review available.

Sunday, August 7th 2011, 12:51PM

New Blog

Today we start a new Blog focussing on investment and financial planning issues. The first posting is looks at how advisers should manage portfolios for income and growth and suggests many of the strategies used are outmoded and wrong. You may have seen lots of discussion about annuities in the mainstream media recently - this post has a warning about these products too. Have a read of here.

Sovereign expands funds offering

Sovereign has boosted its Select Wealth Management offering with the addition of six funds to its range.

The company said the new funds were included to meet what it said were growing adviser market demands.

After initially examining 15 funds, the company opted for six (Blackrock Greater Europe, Russell Global Opportunities Fund Hedged, Harbour Core Fixed Interest, Kiwi Income Property Trust, K2 Selected International and Hunter Hall Global Ethical) it said provided the best fit with advisers.

MED clarifies regulatory funding options

The Ministry of Economic Development (MED) has outlined how it decided on its funding options for the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and Financial Advisers Act (FAA).

In a Q&A document on the MED website it said the proposed options, "reflect that third party funding should be resourced from financial market participants who stand to benefit from operating in a stronger regulatory environment."

The MED also cited administrative ease and the resulting lower transaction costs for all parties.

It said a flat FMA levy will impact all financial advisers and service providers the same, and is offset by the tiered FAA levy.

"As a large number of financial market participants are likely to be providing financial adviser services, the total cost to such participants will vary across the industry."

Latest Monthly Market Review

The latest Monthly Market Review is available in our Data and Rates section. Click here to see how markets have been performing in New Zealand and across the world.

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