Well the portfolio has dropped in value by 8% due to the current market uncertainty. This is no big deal with the long term picture (provided they keep coughing up dividends) but I am not increasing the margin loan amount at the moment to keep it on an even keel and to stabilise the gearing ratio. I have picked up a bunch more SLF as the price dropped, partly to get more at the new cheaper price, and partly to help stabilize the gearing ratio. A few other good shares seem to be cheap now, will make a few more purchases at regular intervals to use dollar cost averaging to keep things stable.
addendum: a week late I snarfed some TGG and AEZ, which are down 24 and 33 per cent respectively.
Well at last it looks like Hunter Hall have provided some online access for clients to check out their investments.. a big step up as Australian Ethical has had this feature for some time.
On other Hunter Hall related news they have also launched a new Global Deep Green Trust - quoting from their web site:
“The Hunter Hall Global Deep Green Trust will focus investment in enterprises which are deemed to make a positive impact on the well being of humans, animals and the environment.
The Hunter Hall Global Deep Green Trust should be regarded as a speculative investment.”
After reading an interesting thread on index funds etc on invested.com.au I just found out that that one gap in the ETF market in Australia has been filled - international index funds. In fact a whole pile of them launched at the same time - they are essentially ASX listed, aussie dollar denominated versions of funds already available in the USA and Canada
Now if only there was an SRI/Ethical index fund available to non-institutional investors.
update
The iShares funds now listed on the St George margin lending acceptable securities list with a gearing ratio of 60%.
The Basis Capital web site says:
A globally focused fund investing in a diversified portfolio of relative value and arbitrage opportunities in international markets, across liquid Eurobonds and less liquid structured credit securities.
while the article on The Age web site says:
The Basis Yield Alpha Fund had invested mainly in collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), bundles of bonds, loans and asset-backed debt securities that are divided into sections, or tranches, including the high-risk subprime mortgages.
While the aim of the CDOs is to spread the risk, commentators have described the process as being like putting horse dung and rubbish into a grinder to make sausage.
All the non-geared managed funds sold for use as house deposit, so these all held within the margin loan account. This lot will most likely stay fairly static for a while.
Listed in order of largest holding to smallest:
Some good:
- http://www.realestate.com.au - appears to be the most popular. Agents incredibly slack to keep their listings up to date though, about 1/3 of the listings seem actually sold if you try and follow them up.
- http://www.domain.com.au - second most popular? cleaner layout, but harder to use than realestate.com.au, a lot of overlap. And they keep emailing me listings of “new” properties that are also listed as “just sold” on the same page. What?
- http://www.property.com.au/ - realestate.com.au with a “web 2.0″ skin.. much nicer to use. Unifinished but shows potential
- http://www.myhome.com.au/ - slick, not as many listings
- http://www.homehound.com.au/ - also nice, bit a bit more overlap. good use of google maps. Not enough ranges for limiting search selections. 150K-200K, then 200K to 400K? Why can’t I put in both upper and lower limit? Its my search.
Some needing work:
- http://www.zeroagents.com.au/ - very nice site, but few listings, a pity as it is direct (no agents)
- http://www.owner.com.au/ - more listings than zeroagents it seems, but not massive, web design firmly located in 1997. One property I in there I googled showed up as being sold by and agent after it was apparently (no dates?) listed..
- http://www.diysell.com.au/ - another very nice site, but not many listings, only 16 for all of Melbourne when I checked.
- http://www.noagentproperty.com.au - ugly, linear and hard to navigate site, but has more listings than the others.
I am a fan of the concept of agentless sales, but with all the listings spread over a range of mostly terrible quality websites the current state isn’t good. If they were all listed in zeroagents.com or diysell it would be great.
Try Minihub. They will also do MediaWiki.
yes, this is a plug. yes I do have a prior relationship with these guys.
Found this one while looking up ways to replace the carpet if we end up with a house with carpet.. Bamboo Flooring.
Style Limited :
Bloomberg Share Summary
Style Limited Company Web Site
SYP is involved in the manufacture, distribution and marketing of a range of renewable resource products throughout Australia and New Zealand. The company is concentrating on a unique, patented flooring made from strand woven bamboo with a timber appearance.
Don’t know if it’sa good investment or not, but I like the bamboo approach.
Objective: To provide long-term growth through investment in overseas companies which meet the Australian Ethical Charter.
Check the link to the announcement on the Australian Ethical Website for further info.
Great news as though there is also the excellent Hunter Hall trusts, always good to have some extra options to diversify in this area.