Hello and welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby, the Wealth editor at the Australian. Welcome aboard everybody. It's the last regular show of the year, and while I have a chance to say it, I just want to wish all our listeners a good relaxing break over the holidays and a prosperous new year. Maybe we can help you with the chances of a prosperous twenty twenty five, So watch out on the comic weeks for some special shows.
There's a terrific special episode on the fire movement, financial independence, retire early movement, which a lot of people have been interested in. I've saved a special show for you on that with Lion Lee. That'll be out on Christmas Eve, and then we'll roll out a four part special summer series on how to prepare as an investor in twenty twenty five. The first two shows will be on the share markets. They're really good, if I may say so, On the on the Outlook for markets that is all markets,
the ASEX, the NASDAK, whatever you've got. I've got Mark Dokum of global X. And then there's a second show in the series, which is on share selection and share picking for you the Australian investor on the ASEX, and that's with June Belieu of ten Capital. Or later in the series we'll have some shows on property and once you've put all that together, there's a final show on managing your investment portfolio in the year ahead. So we look forward to all that, but first let's take a
look at what actually happened in twenty twenty four. And I'm joined by the most regular guest of twenty twenty four, James Gerard of Financial Advisor dot com dot you. How are you?
I'm doing great for this pre Christmas episode. Love to be here with you.
Well, it's good that you could get the time. I presume like everything else, it's like for most people. It's actually murderous, difficult and busy the last few days because I always have to sort of accelerate to take a break, so by the time I actually take a break, I'm in much worse condition than I would be on the average weekend.
Are you the same, Yeah, I'm same. I was looking at my calendar tomorrow I've got nine meetings before we have our Christmas party at five point thirty. So I'm not sure how to drink or just pass out when I get there.
Oh god, oh that's bad. Yes, I've had some What can I say? I have to be very diplomatic here. I've had a surprise, some surprise requests from the editorial desk of The Australian the day before I'm supposed to finish. So what can I say? Accept, James, It's great to have experience, because I've had lots of surprises at Christmas in the past. So I was waiting. I was just waiting, and of course it came in this morning, don't you know. Okay, now let's take a look. You know, it's funny every people.
Of course they do their wraps for the year too fast. I reckon, there's people doing all these wraps of the year saying the Australian share market will do sixteen looks like it's going to do sixteen percent. Eighteen percent. Thing is, believe it or not, Folks, as we speak to you on the nineteenth of December, the ASX two hundred, Well
it's hey, it's good, don't you worry about that. But in fact it has waned ever so slightly in the last the last few days, and we are now looking if we rule off the books this morning, James, we're looking at about eight and a half percent for the year, plus four and a bit for dividends, so maybe we'll still be in the teens of thirteen percent share market return. And chant West this morning said for super funds, for most super funds, the average default balance fund maybe eleven percent.
Either way, you've got to think double digits whatever happens in the next few days, and double digits is pretty good.
Huh. Yeah, No, it's been great. So for the average super fun balance that they're looking at, I you say, double digit returns. And for retirees have had it even bitter because we've had the cash breaker up thirteen times over the past two and a half years. So for a retiree, regardless if they're in bonds or they're in shares, they're having a crack in year.
Yes. Yeah. And when people come into you, if I come into you, you know, a wide eyed twenty six year old by first time sitting opposite a financial advisor and I know nothing, And I said to you, so what can I expect? You know, what should I expect on my super each year? What should I expect on my shares each year? Sort of numbers would you give then? Would they be considerably different than the numbers I've just called out.
Similar, probably a little bit lower. So it's just looking at the long term averages over say ten or fifteen years, and so for we've got middle of the road balanced super fun which probably be a bit too conservative for this younger investor, but that's where most people end up if they don't make a choice. You're looking at a
long term return of around that eight nine percent. But for that younger investor, we'd probably be steering them more towards the growth based portfolio or high growth if they have a higher risk tolerance, purely because that the investment timeframe they have is a lot longer. They can't touch their super for another thirty five forty odd years, and so the return on that type of growth or high growth, then you're sort of pushing that those double digit returns on average.
Of course, they won't always do that, that's what years there won't be anything remotely like double digit. Yes, okay, And if someone came into you now and they were switching from you know, the mediocre advisor to something better and they said, listen, you know it's been pretty good. I'm quite happy with my portfolio.
This year.
I did twelve thirteen percent on my on my Australian shairs, and I'm expecting to do twenty to thirty percent of my overseas shares and my money is coming in at five percent in my cash and I want much much better performance next year. And I want you to guide me as an advisor. What would you say?
You just have to bring people down to reality and just look at these long term averages and look at the possibility of a negative return, which on the average growth based port filio is once in every four or five years we're going to have a negative return on
share markets. And so if a new client comes in the first thing I'm saying, if they have high expectations is don't expect this again next year, because it'd be great if we have it, but the history shows us we're probably not going to get another twenty percent year. And if anything, where we're transitioning clients across from one super fund or one investment account to the one that we recommend, we're holding a little bit of cash at
the moment. We're not fully investing. So although they may have a strategy where say eighty percent of their money should be in share markets and twenty percent should be in bonds, we're actually going, well, let's put sixty or seventy percent into shares and keep a little bit more dry powder, because we just look at some of the metrics around share markets and we go, well, the share market is priced today at a high evaluation compared to
the long term averages, and over time everything reverts back to it to mean. And so we don't know if it's going to be tomorrow or next month, but there's probably a little bit of weight there for share markets to drop, and we're s done to see that a little bit now, and so we're taking a little bit
more of a conservative view. We're still investing because we don't want to miss out, but we're not fully investing in appreciating that we have had a bumper year and things do look a little bit expensive.
What would be the acid areas that you would be taking some profits.
Us tech basically everywhere that has growth tilts towards it has gone up a lot, whereas the value based investments, the boring ones which are sort of there where the times are good or bad, they haven't gone up as much.
So we're looking at the investments that are priced today based on the growth and the revenue they're going to get tomorrow, and where things turn in an economy and where people take profits, and if there's an unexpected event that occurs with say global conflict, people sell off this high growth investments because they're the ones that have the highest risk to them. So that's where we're taking profit and where we're quote unquote underweighting at the moment.
The thing is everyone's saying move into small caps, right, this is this big theme small caps. Small caps is where you going to be small captains where this market has been really good, and now the next tier is small caps. This is a surprise event. That's the first thing that's going to fall, isn't it?
Oh massively? Yeah, The volatility in that sector is much more than most other segments of the markets. So it is true that the large technology companies in the US have performed really well and they're quite large, take up a large percentage of the index, and there is a lot of value in these smaller technology companies, But don't forget the risk that's are attached to them, and people have rather short memories. You don't have to go back a couple of years where we saw twenty thirty forty
percent drops in a lot of US technology companies. But we've gone through this bit of a purple patch, and then people's risk appetite tends to ratchet up a little bit because they're feeling good, their portfolios up. They don't want to miss out. But you just have to sort of bring ourselves back to reality because other investors, we get a bit carried away at times with the way we invest. The emotional behavior can sometimes get the bitter of us.
And just on the local market, it's simply that that's even more pronounced the blue chip small cap gap and
inside the market the banks driving the whole thing. Come a bank of for in one year inconceivable really, And then this notion that there's will be a switch to minors, but just interrogating that, I understand why someone would say there should be a switch to miners, but I could I can understand why filone would say they could be a switch out of banks, but I don't necessarily see the attraction of the switch to miners pera se, because the commodity outlook isn't that good, and the iron ore
doesn't and the China plate doesn't quite offer the readings you'd like to see if you were switching, what do you say to people who are thinking along those lines. You know, I've done so well out of the ASX and the big banks and some of the other blue chip industrials that I should take profits now and swing it into small caps and minus. What would you say if I was planning to do that.
I think it's from a valuation perspective, it makes sense to sell out of something that's gone up by forty to fifty percent. And my rule of thumb with the banks is I like to buy the banks when they're paying a ten percent grossed up dividend, whereas CBA at the moment, I think they're based dividends about three percent, so grossed up it's probably like four and a half five percent, So it's way off that very basic valuation metric I have in terms of when it's attractive time
to buy the bank. Look, I probably wouldn't switch out of it all together because the banks make up a large part of the Australian share market and by selling out of your whole bank exposure. You're just creating more issues or you're providing bringing more volatility into your portfolio, is what I'm trying to say. So they're a good anchors,
a good long term thing to have. But in terms of if you want to be tactical and you want to try and sell out of something that's gone up and then move it into something undervalued, well then sure, yeah, pursue that strategy. And we're confident with that as well, and we're moving a bit of money into the res all sector. But it's not an all or nothing type thing. It's a find the balance with it.
Yes, okay, but it is. But there is a switch going on out of overpriced financials into what might be underpriced miners. What about gold, James.
Yeah, Well, the predictions earlier in the year was that I was reading this and I was looking at my notes from January February this year that the US investment banks we were saying that gold might go up by ten percent or so. But it's gone out by much more than that. And if I'm looking at the forecast for next year, people standingly are saying there's still more
to go. So I'm advising clients to take profit and sell down, not completely, but take a decent chuck of that gold profit off the table and move it into something else. Because also we have to remember that the bonds generating quite a lot of yield the moment. Property stocks are given a lot of dividends, so the alternative to gold quite attractive. Remembering that gold doesn't pay you anything.
It's just a hunk of metal that you just hold in a little box somewhere, Whereas you can buy other stuff that will hopefully hold its value but also pay you an income to So in short, we're not see on it completely, but we're reducing exposure.
And what are the areas if you were trimming off gold that you would look at.
It depends on the profile, the risk appetite of the investor, and why they bought gold in the first place. Some people bought gold on an opportunistic basis, hoping that it would go up a lot, and it has, so for those people, it's taking the profit and moving into something else that is opportunistic. So whether that's as you mentioned, the smaller technology companies or the mining stocks that would
be a good replacement for the gold exposure. Whereas for other people it's a defensive part of their portfolio they wanted as a hedge against bad times. And so where we're selling down gold exposure, we may move it into something defensive in nature, like Australian government bonds.
Oh yes, I see, Okay, very good. All right now, one other thing I want to just take a look at before we take a break cash. So we've done, We've had a sort of run around through the share market, which I think the essential point listeners from James and from many other people on the show is enjoy your returns this year and do not expect them to be
repeated next year. And I'd lovely it'd be delighted to be wrong about this, But the chances are that, I mean, honestly, when you see Combank going of forty five percent in a year, or NAB if you don't mind going up thirty percent in the year after doing nothing for a decade, it's the same bank, right, the same economy. I didn't. I don't see it being redrawn or spectacularly redesigned in
that time. You can't. History would suggest, and the economic rationalism would suggest that it would be very unlikely that we see all that happen again in twenty twenty five. In relation to Linkedwin banks is cash and cash deposits James. So because the rate cuts never came this year, the term deposit rates remained really good. That is really good compared to what they used to be over the last decade, we say, where they were hopeless for a couple of years. What's your view in the year ahead.
So it's looking like that will get some rate cuts. And it was interesting that the Reserve Bank have sort of split up their board into two different boards. They brought in two new board members onto this thing called the Monitory Board. So seven existing and RBA board members have moved across to the Monetary Board. There's two new members, one a former banking CEO and the other one an
economics professor. So the view is that this new Monetary Board, which is responsible for interest rate or cash rate decisions, they're not meeting in January, but there maybe around that February March April, we may see the first rate cut. If you look at the sheer marker, what they're betting on that they're betting that there's a s sixty percent
chance that will see a rate cut. The first one to happen in February, and the sheer market's spending on three rate cuts, three zero point two five percent rate cuts by December twenty twenty five. So when you look at that as the what the experts quote unquote are predicting, what should you do with your term deposits? And the banks have actuaries, they're pretty smart at calculating what the
cash rate's going to be into the future. So if you look at your turn deposit rate sheet and what you have on off of, you'll probably notice that the longer you go into the future, the lower the turn deposit rate will be because the banks are already figured out that, ah, yes, the Reserve Bank is going to
cut the cash rate. So it doesn't really matter if you go for a six month turn deposit or a twelve month You can't really beat the cycle because the bank is already factored in what's likely to happen with the cash rates.
Yes, except I suppose the further out more likely the one party will be wrong.
That's that's correct. That is true if you're.
Locking away for three years, if the banks don't know what the rates are going to be, they'll be a bit better on the or term like we all are. I suppose because they're able to read the tea leaves over a shorter, shorter space of time. Okay, very useful, folks. Will be back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby talking to James
Girard on our last regular show of the year. I wanted to take a look at two other things, James, just in terms of review of the year, but also the review only on the basis of what it tells us about the coming year, or it's what it might indicate will come down the line in the coming year. We mentioned about super returns and they're looking pretty good. We're talking about eleven percent for the average default balanced fund.
If you have a self managed super fund, I reckon you're going to do a lot better than eleven percent, especially if your shares are coming in at fourteen fifteen maybe in the ASEX and twice that on American markets. And if you happen to have and I bet you do, happen to have something like Calmbank or even in AB then that's going to bounce your portfolio. In fact, it was pretty hard to pick a bat. I mean, everyone can manage it. Of course, pick one bad stock.
Every year.
There's always one, isn't there. My one this year, by the way, for everyone, just so you know, is Ramsey Healthcare. Good God, that was the wrong call. But the rest, and I only have twelve individual stocks. The rest have been absolutely delightful, oh so good. And Combank, which I have by the way since I think two oh on the very first day I started my fund I suppose, which was around two oh six. Well, that's just been
splendid it. The AI stocks have done well, but only market average really, so some of my beauties this year certainly have been Combank in any by which I did not expect them to be. But I'm so glad that there and that I held them through that. The point I'm leading to is that just that smsfs probably had much better probably most smsfs most of the time, but I have had much better trans than eleven. Would you say over the year, I'd.
Agree with that. SMSF trustees tend to swing the bat a little bit harder and take a little bit more risk when it comes to things, but it goes both ways. In bad times, they tend to hold cash more and they tend to hold it for for longer. But we've had a decent period of time of upward markets and so i'd agree with you that the super funds, self managed super funds would on average have better returns because they would be more exposed to these individual stocks which
have done well. They would have picked a few US direct shares in addition to some of the blue chips here that have done well.
Yes, I should have had. I wish i'd had no cash at all held over the year, and my SMSF similarly, they're not listed. The unlisted assets were okay, they were all right, But I think like the shares or the shares in the US and share funds in the US and specialist share funds the US, which I have been great, But that's the advantage of an SMSF, and it's it's nimble and you have that tactical advantage. And similarly, you must always keep cash. And I'm sure you'd say that
to all listeners. So even on the best of times, you've got to keep that cash because you never know what's going to happen. And even in the last few days, it's a bit of fear isn't there with the Digico floating in the local market, who is supposed to be the float of the year has been a flop. That's very disappointing because IPOs are a key indication. This was the biggest ipo of the year. The US Fed cut rates last night. That's all good, but people aren't listening
to the cut. They're listening to the outlook from j. Powell, and the outlook was was pretty pretty hokish. So markets can turn on the dial, can't they?
They can, And in the US Drove Power made an interesting observation in terms of he said that they gave the indication that they're only going to do two right cuts next year, rather than for which the market had expected, and so that's why we saw some substantial drop overnight. But he made an interesting comment that he said, look, what do you want me to do? He goes, this future is uncertain. We don't know what twenty twenty five
is going to look like. We have a new president in place, and he use the analogy it's like at night time, if you come out of your bedroom and you're trying to find your way to the toilet, do you run down the hallway in the dark or do you sort of like slowly ease your way down the hallway. So that's what he's doing metaphorically when it comes to the US.
And labor metaphor, Yeah, very much, the metaphor that a man in his late sixties would come up with that said sixties. Yes, I see, okay, we'll chake that on board from Jpower. Hey, yeah, tell me also running through the sort of acid classes, and we are running through the folks. But that's the nature of the time of the show, the time frame of the show, and what I would expect is the concentration span of the average listener.
Bitcoin.
Tell me where are you on that?
Right?
Most advisors always give the weary answer that, oh, you know, if our client since this will get it for them AMP. Of all people, AMP have broken the mold by announcing that they had put twenty seven million into bitcoin, which costs cut lots of headlines, even though, as we all know, twenty seven million for a big super is you know what they spend on tea bags in the year. But nonetheless they did it right. They've put it in a
leading major opera regulated super fund. So what is your view on bitcoin and what do you say again to the client who comes in and says, I want bitcoin in my super fund, and I'm going to choose the super fund that has it, and if I can't find one, I'll find a way to do it in an SMSF.
Yeah, a lot of people have had their head in the sand when it comes to cryptocurrency, and when it comes to financial advisors. We're very guilty of that because a lot do not understand it, They don't like it, that don't make money from it, So what's the point of recommending it to clients? So they generally don't. I'm supportive of it, but it comes down to that risk return metrics, and you look at what the potential range of returns from say bitcoin can be in a year.
It could be positive one hundred percent or it could go down eighty or ninety percent in a year. So do you really want to have more than a few percent of your retirement assets exposed to something that has
such massive swings upwards and downwards. So similar to the general view, Yeah, happy for people to have some exposure to it, but just don't forget, like what we see with sheer markets, that good times don't always carry on and particularly with cryptocurrency, where there's very pronounced upward markets, but then it falls off a cliff and goes down dramatically, And if you look at the chart, you have to go, well, we're not down the bottom. We're probably closer to the
top than we are down the bottom. So be wary about putting large chunks of money into cryptocurrency now because to a large degree, some of the good return have been already made and the late money tends to be the sucker money. And as the late investors come in, that's when the early investors are cashing out their big profits.
You don't have any inprinciple objection to people putting money into bitcoined or even bitcoin into their super by the sounds of it, not.
In principle, And it really comes down to the masses where we're seeing the US Investment Bank start to gain exposures to it. We're seeing the amps of the world. Commonwealth Bank had a bit of a flurry into setting up their own little exchange a few years ago. So it seems that's the direction that mainstream finance is moving
is in terms of accepting cryptocurrency. And I still have an issue with it in generally that there's no intrinsic value, So unlike the Australian dollar which is backed by the Australian government and gold Reserve and those type of things, that there's no value in cryptocurrency. It's just something that someone's made up and decided I'm going to launch a coin and this is the name of it, and then other people like it and they buy it and that pushes up the price. There's no real use, there's no
tangible asset there. So although it has these fundamental flaws, on the other hand, if you look at it pragmatically, it's not going away, and you just need to accept that if you invest into it, you may be one hundred percent richer or you may be ninety percent poorer in twelve months time.
It's worth as much as people will pay for. Roger Montgomery did an entertaining sidebar in his piece which is his last for the year, which we'll run at the weekend, where he mentioned this Italian artist who got a write banana from the supermarket and then he put tape doctor across it and put it on the wall of a gallery and it sold for six million, which is kind of very close in some ways to some aspects of bitcoin. It's worth whatever. How much is the banana with the
tape doctor, what's the intrinsic value? Thetrinsic value is probably about what ten cents and it's worth six million, So don't go try to assess its value with an intrinsic value traditional value investing estimate, because you're wasting your time. And I imagine bitcoin is very similar. But maybe as us pass people are accepting that. And there's an element of that in gold as well, isn't the gems? I mean, there's an element of that in the price of gold.
Is not the accumulation of how much all the jewelry and drill bits in the world are worth. It's a different thing.
That's correct. You're right, there's an element of the same type of it's worth what people are prepared to pay for it with gold as well, because what has changed with the global gold supply for it to have gone up thirty percent? Say, you know, in recent times there hasn't been thirty percent less discovery of gold or supply of gold. It comes down to people and what they're demanding and what they're wanting to sell. And at the moment people are like in cryptocurrency, and they're continuing to
buy into it. So it's just a matter of question of is this time different or are we going to see what happened last couple of cycles, where invariably we get to this peak of the cycle and then we see a very sharp and dramatic fall in the value of bitcoin and other coins.
Yeah, and I can hear a whole cohort of our listeners saying, you guys have forgotten one big thing, which is of course Trump. And Trump was re elected on a variety of notions, of one of them being that he would he would install crypto deep into the US system.
And so he replaced the former SEC commissioner who was literally anti crypto with an SEC commissioner who's pro crypto, and they're actually talking about not just institutionalizing crypto, but you know, putting it into US strategic reserves, et cetera.
So no wonder it's had to run, No wonder. But the points I think listeners that James makes that it has no intrinsic value, et cetera, and that it is highly volatile and can be rigged I think to a degree by the whales much more than other assets and that would include gold is something that you got to keep in mind, folks. We want to have some questions. I've tried to get through all your questions this year. I didn't but I came pretty close. And I have
a handful of absolute beauties that I have kept. So we'll be back to those in one moment. Hello, Welcome back to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby, Well, editor at The Australian, talking to James Gerard of Financial Advisor dot com dot au. Okay, would you like to read the first one from Andrew?
I can? It would be great to discuss the impact of AMP recently purchasing twenty seven million dollars in bitcoin. This would be a game ranger for the Australian superannuation sector.
Yes, we jumped to go on, Andrew, we did just talk about. I meant to say as part of that is that the RBA no let yes, the ultimate really power in our financial system, has said there's no place in the economy for crypto an AMP, once the greatest fund manager in Australia, is certainly the most storied, one of the oldest, somewhat battered and shrunken, but nonetheless still powerful and possibly turning the corner as an operation just
put retire money into it twenty seven millions. So I think that it is a game changer, Andrew, and I think you're on the money there. And I think we'll see more of it over time, and it will become an asset class and it's no more it's no more unreliable than some of the more exotic products that we see in the market that retirement funds are also in. And I would say one other thing about the whole thing in relation to bitcoin is that it can remain an asset class, but it will always just be on
the speculative side. I think maybe the changes in behind them, blockchain and everything else will be relevant. But also, James, it's correlated. Now it's just another ascid class and it's correlated. Right, So strong markets means strong bitcoin. Week markets mean weak bitcoin. I mean it's not half as interesting from an investor point of view as it might have been if it was non correlated. I think, what do you think you know.
That that's true. It's like a magnified exposure or a geed exposure to shared markets by buying cryptocurrency's. The only other thing I'd say is that it's still a little bit of the wild West. We don't have full regulations in place. So for example, in the US, there's this influencer who is Lady became really famous by in this viral ten second clip, and so she started her own podcast.
She's doing all this advertising, making money through products and things like that, and she started her own meme coin recently. And this is very similar to the share market. How back in the nineties, there were a few people who had investment newsletters and they'd build this big database of people that would listen to their newsletter that would come out, but the a person writing the newsletter would buy the stock before he wrote the newsletter, so it being these
microcap stocks. He's very similar where somebody will come out with their own coin, but they'll hold like ninety percent of the supply of the coin, and when it comes out to the public, the public buys it, but then the person who's started the coin, they just pull their eighty percent out and the price of the coin goes through the floor. So this coin went down like ninety percent in space for a few hours. His influencer made tens of millions of dollars, but upset a lot of
people along the way. But the thing is it's legal to do because there's no regulations around it at the moment.
Yeah, yeah, buyer beware. Okay, buyer beware. You've heard. Can we say it more clearly?
All right?
Stewart Stuort. In relation to Macpherson's, this is an interesting question, not so much about macperson's, but what happened to Stuart in his Macpherson's investments. That's the share of Macpherson's and folks, this is never advice. It's on the information. He cites a letter that he's sent into a correspondence that he's sent in. You're on marketable parcels share facility announced to the ESX earlier in December is disgraceful. It makes my
blood boil. It's one thing to offer the facility and an entirely another thing to compulsively acquire your investors' shares without their explicit consent. Furthermore, the reason many people have unmarketable parcels of shares is because of the appalling performance of the company.
I get it stured.
It's bloody awful to get caught in that situation, So you buy shares in the company, the company is so bad that it shrinks and shrinks to the point that you can't even sell the shares anymore, and you're left with an unmarketable parcel. And then guess what they do some sort of special arrangement where they share sale facility. Thank you very much, you'd say, this is not so
much about McPherson's it's about that process. We don't hear much about that process right now because these are good times, this share market that's going up in double digits. We've had three years of good times, folks. When you have bive times, this sort of stuff goes on all the time. People are forever complaining about being caught in in nonmarketable facilities, or share reconstructions and share consolidations. These are all the damn all of the things you get downtime in markets.
And I think it's very interesting, isn't it, Jage just to remind people that what is now a rarity where the share market goes against you and where there is distinct advantages of being an institution over a retail investor. They come into play when things go down and we don't see much of it right now.
That's right now. I agree with that. And we were mentioned talking about this the other day. Remember that guy who used to send letters out used to get the share registers a certain companies, and he sort of acted very official and it seemed like that he was the shared register or the company. But it's actually just this guy in his living room sending off letters to people offering them to buy their unmarketable parcels of shares, but I'm not sure exactly the details, but offering them a
lot less than what the actual value was. So he must be on a holiday at the moment because times are pretty good, as you just saying, has not a lot of opportunities.
McPherson is perhaps, yes, that process where it exploited. Often people would be so happy to get an offer of any description. And this is the thing you must watch, folks, on all marketable securities and listed securities. Just keep in mind that the market can, as we said earlier in the show, can turn on the dial, and issues which we rarely hear about, like share reconstructions, consolidation of capital,
et cetera, compulstory, acquisition facilities. These are all the downside and the challenge you will have as a share investor, and they will return. I hope they don't return in twenty twenty five, but who says that they won't. All right, what's the question from Lisa there, if you'd like to read it.
Lisa writes, thank you for airing my recent question on this week's show regarding how to invest outside my super account. Until twenty twenty seven with Tim McKay, you had said that you would like to know where you can get the four point eighty five percent on savings with no terms and no conditions, which I, as in Lisa, had mentioned. So the right is available through Bank of Queensland my BOQ Simple Savor account, which is only available through their app online.
Okay, all right, well, thank you very much, Lisa focus. This is not an advert or indeed a promotion of that. I haven't looked at it. I find it still amazing, Lisa, that there are no terms and conditions on it, but if you say so, we will take that on notice. And just good to note that there are offerings out there that give a deposit rate without all the strings attached, which have become so notorious. It's one of the bug bears for me at least in the market. So thank
you Lisa for the correspondent. All right, the final question is from Andrew and it's called It's about black swans, which shall love this question. What is the origin of the term black swan event? I always assumed it meant an event which was extremely rare, being in Australia. The only color of swans I see are black. It's even on the flag for Western Australia. Well, thank you, I
didn't know that. Two things here. Historically black swans, all right, The term came from historically, way way back seventeenth century. Everyone in Europe was of the opinion that swans were white, and when some European voyagers I think they were Dutch Camp two the Australian region, they saw black swans and
so this was seen as an unexpected event. Now in economics and in finance more recently, it became popularized Nicholas nas Seem Teleb with his book which very usefully came out during and after during the GFC, whereverybody was wondering what on earth happened, And his book was perfectly timed because it was all about the black swan events. In finance, it's the thing you don't see coming, and that is what gets all investors, no matter how highly trained or
highly paid they are. The origin of the black swan event, as I say, historically, is actually about swans, and your black swans in West Australia are pretty special and wonderful, but that's the historical sort of surprise aspect of them that they existed and they were black. More pointedly, it's about the unexpected in financial markets. So James and I, like many others around the world at every level, would say, oh, what's going to happen next year? This is going to happen,
That's going to happen. But the thing that's going to rock markets is the thing Unfortunately we can't tell you because it is a black swan. Any black Swan suggestions.
James, No, nothing comes to mind.
Because cleverly dodged there. Why would you walk into that. I don't blame you, Yes, and I have no black swan suggestions because by nature, Andrew, we don't know what they are. And I think that just be the perfect way to leave us and leave the show for the year. Folks, we don't know what's ahead. We've given you every chance to understand the context of what's ahead and how to deal with what's ahead, regardless of what it is, and let the black Swan come.
We'll be ready.
We'll be ready, and we'll be able for it, and this show will guide you through. Hey, thank you very much James for all your help this year and particularly obviously on today's show. Really good to have you on as always.
That's my pleasure. And I leave our listeners. If you need to wake up in the middle of the night and go to the toilet, according to Jerome Powell, walk down the hallway, do not run because you may hit your head on a wall. Right.
Oh well, thank you, Thank you very much mister Powell for that very sensible piece of advice. I wanted to do one or two other things. Thank you very much, say one or two other things. Thank you very much for listening to in the year. I really have been delighted with everything, Delighted with the lifting audience that we got of course through the year, and particularly the response
to the second weekly show that was really good. If you want to give us a Christmas present, mentioned that you'd like to show to one other person over the Christmas break. I keep the emails coming we'd have to collect them for the new Year. The Money Puzzle at the Australian dot Com dot U. Thanks James, thanks everybody. Talk to you soon.