The Barefoot Investor has hit the nail on the head with his easy to read financial explanations for Australians. A ‘must read’ for those wanting to understand their finances, including strategies covering Superannuation, Investment Properties, household cashflow and budgeting, as well as a range of other areas.
One recommendation that Scott Pape makes is to choose the Hostplus Indexed Balanced fund (because it’s cheap!) for your Superannuation fund. However, sometimes you get what you pay for. Many of our clients who would like to invest in line with their values are horrified to find companies like Monsanto, British American Tobacco, Phillip Morris, Japan Tobacco and Sberbank of Russia featuring prominently in the fund.
See International Equities listed by Hostplus here: 0498 Hostplus Investment holding disclosure as at 30 Sep 2017 – International Equities FA(1)
Rather than supporting companies which you consider to be unethical, there are a range of ethical, socially responsible and impact investment options that may better suit your values…and now there are even index funds with ethical overlays, which have lower costs than actively managed funds.
You needn’t sacrifice your ethics for returns. In fact, research clearly shows that you can in fact outperform by investing in companies with good sustainability practices. See: https://yoursri.com/news/arabesque-partners-and-oxford-university-update-sustainability-meta-study
For more about investing in line with your ethics, see our page: https://www.justinvest.net.au/ethical-investment
Or: https://www.responsiblereturns.com.au
Refer: https://hostplus.com.au/super/what-you-need-to-know-about-super/super-investment-options
