These days’ financial scams have become commonplace. Our online lifestyles have given determined criminals access to just about all of our information. And as much as we are promised watertight digital security from service providers, there seems to be a continuous stream of news stories detailing stolen personal information.

Loyalty cards have been around a long time. And like everyone else I religiously, swipe my card at the register in the pursuit of “something for nothing”.

Being somewhat of a ‘student’ of market behavior, I have been particularly interested in the analysis of assorted media experts about the continued record highs being enjoyed by the US share market.

Over the last few months, YouTube has been abuzz with predictions for the end of the world. In fact, according to the conspiracy theorists, the 24th of September was going to be the very last day of the calendar, ever! Apparently, a biblical prediction had detailed the arrival of a mysterious “Planet X” whose sudden close proximity to Earth was about to lead to our total destruction! Needless to say, it didn’t.

Did you know that the concept of “Ethical” investing isn’t new? Probably one of the earliest recorded instances was the Quakers in the eighteenth century, restricting members from investing time or money in the slave trade.

Do you have an emergency fund? Yes, that’s right, an emergency fund; a pool of cash that can be easily accessed in the event of an emergency. (No, your parents don’t count!) Why do I ask? Well, I have recently been reading some research suggesting that 40% of us can’t even raise $750 without going into debt. If so, it would suggest that many of us are living in a precarious state financially and at the mercy of short-term lenders.

Income investing remains one of the primary investment goals for a lot of investors, particularly retiree’s. So not surprisingly, the boom in listed bank issued ‘hybrids’ continues unabated, with new issues popping up at regular intervals.

Over the past 15 years, it would be fair to say that the quality of financial advice has been somewhat wanting. The big banks have certainly gone out of their way to ‘dumb’ it down. As most often, the profession was used by them to just channel money into their fund’s management divisions

Strangely, this year had been quite slow for any corporate scandal watchers out there. Yes, I know,

During my career as a financial planner, I must have seen just about every type of investor there was. There were investors that preferred property, investors that preferred only stocks and investors that chose safety over all else, and stuck with cash. Oh, and absolutely everything in between.