July was the first meeting of Investment after the End of the Financial Year 2018-2019. Hence we looked at the returns the various ASX capitalisation indices provided to investors over the past twelve month period. We noted that there had not been the same increase over all the ASX capitalisation indices, but a more significant increase in the ASX 20 especially compared to the ASX Midcap index or the small ordinaries index.

In the week prior to our July meeting the Federal Reserve had cut interest rates to 1%. Brian Vial started off a discussion at our meeting as to where to find the best investments in the future due to the declining rates being offered for Bank Term Deposits. Several ideas were suggested by various members of the group. We also heard what some of our members aimed at as a reasonable return on their investments.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 2nd August at 2pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Centre.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the June meeting of Investment we welcomed two ex-work colleagues of Margaret Walshe who were staying with her for a few days. At the end of our meeting these ladies spoke quite enthusiastically about our group indicating that there was no such group in either the Eastern suburb or Geelong U3A’s to which they belonged.

The fact that the share market is up over 10% since December 2018 provided the first topic that we considered at the meeting. Initially we looked at which sectors had shown the most increase. Then we delved into those sectors, including Information Technology, Communication, Industrials and Health Care, bringing up graphs of the stocks which had shown the most increase over the past twelve months.

The second topic for the afternoon was on Assessing Shares before the end of the Financial Year. Whilst each member of our group has their own aim with being interested in the Share Market, the overall aspiration is to make money during the year. Being the last meeting before the end of the Financial Year we then spoke about balancing our individual capital gains with any capital losses that may have been incurred during the year.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 5th July at 2pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Centre. 

Margaret Jenkins