Slack Investor remains IN for US, UK and Australian index shares.
After all the doom in March, the Australian Index (+3.9%) has had a great April. The UK Index (+3.4% since our buy IN in the middle of the month) has also bounced back. The US index (+0.3%) has been steady – but Slack Investor is still on high alert – considering high company valuations in the US at the moment.
All Index pages and charts have been updated to reflect the monthly changes – (ASX Index, UK Index, US Index).
The Hayne Train – Financial Royal Commission
Slack Investor is always looking for a new hero and it just might be the Honourable Kenneth Madison Hayne AC QC.
The driver of the Hayne Train is in charge of the new Royal Commission into Australian Financial Services. Commissioner Hayne is very ably assisted by a crack team of lawyers. Kenneth Hayne seems appalled by some of the practices in banking and the financial industry that his commission is exposing. Slack Investor also has a very poor opinion of the bulk of the financial advice industry and is heartened by recent goings on at the Royal Commission. Perhaps the state of financial advice in Australia is best summed up by the seemingly toothless industry watchdog ASIC (Australian Securities & Investments Commission) in a report in January 2018.
ASIC found that in 75% of the advice files reviewed – the advisers did not demonstrate compliance with the duty to act in the best interests of their clients – from ASIC Report 18-019MR 24 January 2018
Wow! … this is a real scandal! Our Australian government regulator that has oversight for financial services and consumer credit has found that three out of four people who go to see a financial advisor receive advice that is not in their best interests!!!
The ASIC report received relatively little press on its release in January and it has taken Kenneth Hayne’s team to forensically go through some astoundingly bad practices of banks and financial advisors for this issue to finally gain some traction with our government, press, and the Australian public – Things have to change!
Power to you Kenneth – you Slack Investor Official Hero (Calling it Early!) … keep exposing and I will present some more of your most excellent initial findings in the next post.