Christmas has come early for the bank’s shareholders with the decision to slightly increase the 2024 dividend – despite a single-digit decline in the net profit and cash earnings.
Beating the market benchmark is never easy, with 72 per cent of Australian actively managed global equity general funds trailing the S&P World Index in the six months to June 30, 2024. Domestic equity funds performed slightly better, albeit against a significantly lower bar set by the S&P/ASX 200 Index.
Women smashing gender pay gap in pursuit of passive income
Australian women are, on average, investing more of their income into sharemarkets, and overwhelming focused on using their capital to back more ‘ESG friendly’ investments. These were among the key conclusions of Pearler, an investing app that seeks to both educate and build a community around finances and investing.
New research released this week by the group, which surveyed their own customer base, highlighted that Millennial women are “picking up share investing” at the same rate as men, despite the continuing 36 per cent average pay gap. In fact, the results suggested that women are allocating 20 per cent more of their after-tax income, usually 12 per cent in total, towards investing.
On average, users of the Pearler app hold between 2 and 3 individual assets, 70 per cent of which are exchange traded funds and invest at least once per month in line with salary payments. Some 53 per cent of all account holders are women and 50 per cent are within the 26-to-35-year age group.
Among the most powerful takeaways from the research, and a potential insight for those seeking to connect with consumers is the “product choice difference between men and women”. Head of Product, Ana Kresina, shares that women are investing into ESG ETFs at twice the rate of men, with Millennial investors more broadly wanting “to make more ethical investment choices when considering their future”.
