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.
Young investors ‘undeterred’ by volatility: Pearler
Young investors are seemingly undeterred by the equity market volatility, according to share trading app Pearler. Pearler claims that on average, eight out of ten trades by its young customers are on the buy-side, versus two trades on the sell-side.
Commenting on the recent volatility, Pearler founder and CEO Nick Nicolaides says “despite these setbacks, what we see is that investors on our platform have continued to trade, buying at a rate of 89 per cent vs 11 per cent sells.”
“Month to month, it’s been interesting to see how continued negative news has played a role. In February and March, we saw investors largely brush off the macro fears, with inflows at 91 per cent of all transactions. April saw some slight attrition at 88 per cent but that has rebounded back to 90 per cent,” says Nicolaides.
The high rate of buying seems to be across the ETF space, with the majority of Pearler clients buying passive index ETFs.
“Today, younger investors have access to financial information and news across various sources. This knowledge and the current economic climate are a catalyst encouraging investors to take a more active approach to managing wealth and building diversified portfolios. Investments like ETFs and more cost-effective, user-friendly trading platforms like Pearler have also opened-up investing to a younger demographic set of investors,” he says.
Nicolaides concludes by saying, “While older investors look to protect their wealth as they approach retirement, younger investors who are starting their investment journey or who are still early in the accumulation phase are obviously concerned that the opportunities for wealth accumulation are drying up compared to previous generations.”
