The number of financial advisers leaving the Industry has accelerated, with 1,759 ceased advisers in quarter 2 of 2019, eclipsing the 1,066 that abandoned their authorisation in Q1, new research from Adviser Ratings revealed (refer to image below).

Mark Hoven, chief executive at Adviser Ratings, says the trend is fuelled by a combination of the Hayne royal commission, advisers walking away from ‘in the spotlight’ institutions, the incoming removal of grandfathered commissions and the possible removal of insurance commissions, as well as new education standards.

At Benchmark Financial Services, we recently celebrated 12 years in business. Our focus from day one has been high customer service levels, tailored client strategies and a remuneration structure which is transparent (and not reliant on commissions). The challenges facing our Industry have certainly resulted in ever increasing paper work and red tape, however have not changed our primary focus on meeting clients’ financial goals & objectives.
This focus will continue, as the broader adviser exodus continues, resulting from sections of the industry’s focus on their own back pockets, rather than their clients.

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After not acting for almost three years, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is well and truly on the move.

Cutting the official cash rate to a new historical low last month, the RBA has once again cut rates today, to an even 1%. That was in line with the majority consensus from Australian economists, including all four of the major banks.

It comes as property market declines in some Australian capital cities appear to be slowing.
Domain economist Trent Wiltshire is of the majority view that the RBA will cut again later in the year to bring the interest rate to 0.75%, which will help ease property woes.
“Interest rates cuts will be the key driver of prices bottoming out sooner rather than later,” he told Business Insider Australia.

Lower rates have seen retirees and investors in general, move to equities, where dividend yields have remained stable or increased in recent years.

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Something our clients will never hear us say….

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At its meeting today, the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) decided to lower the cash rate by 25 basis points to a record low 1.25 per cent.

The RBA stated that it “took this decision to support employment growth and provide greater confidence that inflation will be consistent with the medium-term target.
The outlook for the global economy remains reasonable, although the downside risks stemming from the trade disputes have increased. Growth in international trade remains weak and the increased uncertainty is affecting investment intentions in a number of countries. In China, the authorities have taken steps to support the economy, while addressing risks in the financial system.”

The interest rate cut had generally been expected and is a positive for home owners, whilst retirees/investors holding excessive levels of cash will often move to assets with higher potential returns such as shares.

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In 1997, when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was considering how his company could expand from its core books business, he was quoted as follows:

“Maybe one of the things that we can do is when you come in and if you search for books on kayaks, we’ll show you the list of 225 books we have on kayaks, but we’ll also show you an advertisement for a company that sells kayaks. And you can click on that and go to their Web site and buy a kayak”

At that time, Amazon shares were trading at (an adjusted) price of $3.19. They have since increased nearly 60,000% for loyal share holders, and are now sitting at over US$1,800 per share.

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