Invest
Investing: It’s ‘not rocket science’
Investors have become “so attuned” to target-led investing that many would-be investors believe it’s a lot harder than it is, a fintech professional has said.
Investing: It’s ‘not rocket science’
Investors have become “so attuned” to target-led investing that many would-be investors believe it’s a lot harder than it is, a fintech professional has said.
In fact, that attitude is part of what inspired the birth of investment start-up, AtlasTrend, co-founder Kent Kwan told Nest Egg.
According to him, democratisation of information and access has occurred in many industries including the travel and insurance industries.
However: “If you look at the financial services industry, particularly the industry we operate in which is funds management, that hasn't really changed in the past 20 years.
“We haven’t really seen that level of democratisation and a lot of that knowledge still sits within the providers of those services; the traditional providers and the end consumer has somewhat been either discouraged or hasn’t been able to access that information.”
Mr Kwan argued that if investors had access to jargon-free information, they would have a “much better experience from investing”.
Calling investing a “pretty critical skill through life”, he said AtlasTrend aims to bridge the gap between information around investment opportunities and what a consumer actually understands.
“There is a lot of jargon which unfortunately the [financial services] industry uses for tradition more than anything else. I think a lot of that, if not all of it, can be removed and that’s one thing that we really concentrate hard on doing; we really try to give our customers jargon-free access to information.”
The future according to AtlasTrend
While Australian investors are “very, very good at investing domestically” in property or blue-chip shares, they’re a bit more hesitant, Mr Kwan said.
“I think the bad thing with that is Australia - a fantastic country to live in - but our stock market is less than 3 per cent market value of the entire world’s stock market,” he continued.
“There’s another 97 per cent out there and there’s a lot of incredibly fast growing, interesting industries and trends out there which, as Aussies, we’re probably all customers of.”
He argued that as people increasingly live globalised lives, there’s no reason not to have a global view of investing.
Tapping into that, AtlasTrend offers four global “trends” that investors can tap into, including Baby Boomers, big data, healthy lifestyle and online shopping.
The “trends” are managed investment schemes which invest in global shares that AtlasTrend believes will benefit financially from a particular global trend.
“The key criteria for coming up with any new trend is we look at a lot of data and research, and we ask ourselves the question: what is happening around the world and over the next 10 years?
“There’s no certainty in life or investment but we’re pretty much close to certainty we’ll be experiencing some very fast significant growth [in these trends].”
For example, in terms of online shopping, “everyone” knows Amazon is coming to Australia and a lot of Australians are already Amazon customers.
He elaborated: “There might be a perception that, yes it is growing but the growth may have slowed down because it’s been around for so many years already. But in actual fact, when we started digging into the figures, in the US … only 8 per cent of retail goods and services are sold online.
“There’s another 92 per cent that’s actually not sold online which is an astonishing number when you consider how much the internet is used even in a country like the US.”
Considering this, he said AtlasTrend’s decision to include online retail in its “trends” was informed by the view that online shopping won’t reverse over the next decade and instead has plenty of room for growth.
He said the trends are designed to be accessible and “convince people that [making investment decisions] is actually possible”.
“Investing isn’t rocket science. A lot of it is very much common sense and if you … just start learning about it, I think people would become quite pleasantly surprised to say: hey you know what, I can actually do it,” he concluded.
Stock market
Could this bull market be losing steam?
There’s an old investment adage that bull markets never die of old age, with the current market showing signs of cracking just months after the recovery, an industry expert warns. ...Read more
Stock market
Super fund investors bid to acquire Sydney Airport
A group of super fund investors has lodged a non-binding takeover bid for Sydney Airport, valuing the company at over $22 billion. ...Read more
Stock market
10 most globally held stocks revealed
Australian investors remain bullish on electric vehicles and technology stocks, according to their long-term held positions, new research has shown. ...Read more
Stock market
How ‘gamer investors’ are pushing a new wave of social responsibility
A new generation of younger retail investors are pushing a new social movement, yielding a distributive impact on the markets, most notably through the GameStop saga, two researchers have revealed. ...Read more
Stock market
ASX tipped for record high despite inflation fears
The market is tipped to shake off fears of rising inflation, with the ASX 200 now tipped to close the year at a new record high, an economist has revealed. ...Read more
Stock market
‘Commission-free propaganda’: Warning issued for retail investors
The phrase “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” applies just as much to stock trading apps as it does to social media networks. ...Read more
Stock market
Is the tech sell-off creating opportunities for investors?
A tech sell-off sparked by inflation concerns has seen world markets crash. But is it creating an opportunity for investors to ‘buy the dip’? ...Read more
Stock market
Government opens arms to Wall Street
In its bid to maintain Australia’s global competitiveness, albeit its firmly shut borders, the Australian government has included a measure in its recent budget to allow foreign financial services p...Read more
The Olympic effect on property and equity investors; COVID-19 Disaster Payments and super
Listen now
Do lockdowns boost property prices? Are short-sellers levelling the playing field? Did you lodge your tax returns early?
Listen now
Will lockdowns halt the housing boom? Is the metaverse taking over? And the cons of lodging your tax returns early
Listen now
Are you being priced out of the market? Have you got the Tuesday blues? And are you ready for the upcoming super changes?
Listen now
Stock market
Could this bull market be losing steam?
There’s an old investment adage that bull markets never die of old age, with the current market showing signs of cracking just months after the recovery, an industry expert warns. ...Read more
Stock market
Super fund investors bid to acquire Sydney Airport
A group of super fund investors has lodged a non-binding takeover bid for Sydney Airport, valuing the company at over $22 billion. ...Read more
Stock market
10 most globally held stocks revealed
Australian investors remain bullish on electric vehicles and technology stocks, according to their long-term held positions, new research has shown. ...Read more
Stock market
How ‘gamer investors’ are pushing a new wave of social responsibility
A new generation of younger retail investors are pushing a new social movement, yielding a distributive impact on the markets, most notably through the GameStop saga, two researchers have revealed. ...Read more
Stock market
ASX tipped for record high despite inflation fears
The market is tipped to shake off fears of rising inflation, with the ASX 200 now tipped to close the year at a new record high, an economist has revealed. ...Read more
Stock market
‘Commission-free propaganda’: Warning issued for retail investors
The phrase “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” applies just as much to stock trading apps as it does to social media networks. ...Read more
Stock market
Is the tech sell-off creating opportunities for investors?
A tech sell-off sparked by inflation concerns has seen world markets crash. But is it creating an opportunity for investors to ‘buy the dip’? ...Read more
Stock market
Government opens arms to Wall Street
In its bid to maintain Australia’s global competitiveness, albeit its firmly shut borders, the Australian government has included a measure in its recent budget to allow foreign financial services p...Read more
More articles
Website Notifications
Get notifications in real-time for staying up to date with content that matters to you.
