During June we have had two Zoom Investment meetings with eight members attending each meeting.  We have been able to use the Screen Share facility of Zoom and show our members CommSec as part of the meeting. This makes the Zoom meeting much more like our previous face to face meetings and seemed to be appreciated by everyone.

In the second session we looked at the use of conditional trading, and discussed the benefits and downside of using it as a tool in share trading. We also mentioned that the end of the financial year was approaching, and that this was a suitable time to assess any capital gains. 

We mentioned the volatility index which this year showed a large spike in March and a smaller more recent spike in June. These spikes are as a result of the economic disruption caused by the COVID pandemic. It will be interesting to see if the volatility index settles back to a more normal pattern later this year.

The next Zoom Investment meeting will be on Friday 3rd July 2020 at 2pm. An invitation to the meeting will be sent out the previous day. 
 
Margaret Jenkins

During the month of May we have had two Zoom Investment meetings with eight members attending both sessions. We also shared our monthly investment grids with two other members by Email.  If any other Investment member would like to join the Zoom meeting or receive the grid each month, please send me an Email.

During the first Zoom Investment meeting Brian Greed gave us an interesting talk on Property Investment. We followed this with some discussion on the conditions that had been implemented by the Government during the present financial situation to alleviate hardship.

Before the second Zoom meeting I circulated a Power Point presentation which Les Rodgers had prepared on Bonds. During the meeting Les explained the various slides as Bonds can be a tricky subject to those not familiar with it.

My thanks to both Brian and Les for their presentations which we all enjoyed and both of which contained a great deal of useful information.  Zoom meetings are almost like a real meeting in as much as you see all the participants (unless they want to be incognito) and can judge their reactions throughout the meeting.

Investment is going to have their next Zoom meeting on Friday 5th June at 2pm. An invitation to the meeting with a link to connect to it will be sent out on Thursday 4th June 2020. See you there!
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Margaret Jenkins

There have been a number of positive responses to having a Zoom meeting for Investment on Friday 1st May 2020 at 2pm. For those who wish to attend you will get an invitation on Thursday 30th April. Each person attending needs to download the free Zoom app onto their device, so that they can attend the Zoom meeting which normally lasts for up to 40 minutes.

YouTube videos can help you understand Zoom.  ‘How to Use Zoom’  will help you to help set up Zoom and enter Zoom meetings while ‘Zoom Basics – Using Zoom to set up Classes and Meetings’ takes you carefully through the process of setting up a Zoom meeting.

During the past week I have been asked if our monthly selections could continue. This would mean that the grid is sent out to you all on the Thursday before our meeting. The grid will be closed at close of trading on Wednesday 29th April.

One of our members has suggested the topic “Investment Properties in the COVID-19 environment” for our meeting on Friday 1st May. It would be good to hear the strategies members or their agents have used when dealing with tenants during this unusual time. 
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Hope you are all well and looking after yourselves.

Margaret Jenkins

At the March meeting of Investment we discussed the financial implications of COVID 19 to date, and how it could have a bigger impact on Australia than other countries because of our trade, international students and tourists from China. We noted that for the final week of February the all ordinaries was down 10.3% for the week as compared to the US market being down 12% for the same period. 

We spoke about how the impact of COVID 19 had to an extent overshadowed the February 2020 Reporting Season.  We looked at the charts of about 20 varied stocks and how their Net Profit after Tax and dividend to shareholders had impacted those charts.
 
We also discussed a new ASX All Technology Index and how it seemed to be a combination of two current indexes, namely the Information Technology Index and Consumer Services Index. We looked at their Top 10 Constituent stocks and found that they all fell into the large and medium cap stocks of the Information Technology Index and the Consumer Services Index.

Finally we mentioned the share purchase plan available from Bendigo and Adelaide Bank which had had a successful Institutional Placement of $250M, and was now offering $50M of new shares to retail investors. This offer closed on 13 March, and as the market fell substantially to this closing date, retail investors paid considerably less than the $9.34 that Institutional investors had paid for each Bendigo share.

From 21 March 2020 U3A Benalla meetings have been suspended due to COVID-19 until the second semester.

You will all receive Email notification when we are allowed to recommence meetings.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the first meeting of Investment for 2020 we welcomed three new members to our group.

We discussed how the widespread bushfires and the Corona virus which had emanated in China were affecting the Australian economy and some Australian listed shares.

We also mentioned the small Neo banks such as Xinja bank which were making an impact on the market against the big four banks and the fact that they were 100% digital and had no bricks and mortar branches.

Being the beginning of a new decade we looked at the ASX Top 50 companies and how their total return had performed against the ASX 200 benchmark. We found that only 17 out of these 50 companies had outperformed the ASX 200 over that ten year period.

Finally we looked at both the large cap and medium cap shares in both the Health Sector and the Consumer Staples sector. Both these sectors had shown better than seven per cent growth in the past month, this increase being more pronounced in some particular shares than others.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 6th March at 2pm in our U3A room.  
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Margaret Jenkins

At the December meeting of Investment we had a special segment on Managed Bonds presented by one of our members Les Rodgers. Les told us about the variety of Funds that are available in Australia including Mutual Funds and Market Neutral funds. Thank you Les for a well prepared and very informative segment.

Malcolm Sanders supplied us with a hand out from Market Index showing current high yielding shares available on the Australian Stock market.

We also looked at some shares which have shown considerable capital improvement over the past six and 12 month periods.

Congratulations to Nola McDonald who won the Monthly Share selection competition which we ran during 2019. This means back to back wins of the Monthly competition for Nola which is quite an achievement.
 
Congratulations also to Margaret Walshe who won the Yearly selection with Nanosonics Limited.  Both competitions keep us informed about how various shares are progressing during the year as well as being a bit of fun and keeping our competitive spirits alive.

Thank you to all members of Investment group for their continuing comments during our sessions.  Best wishes to everyone for a happy, healthy and enjoyable 2020. Hope to see you all next year.
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Margaret Jenkins 

At the November meeting of Investment we looked at a list of Trending Shares which had been selected based on Alan Hull principles. These principles include the fact that shares should increase by a capital amount of between 10% and 25% per year.  The list of 26 shares had all shown good capital growth over both 6 and 12 month periods and covered a range of Sectors. Some of the graphs of these shares were looked at in detail.

One of our members John Hanlon then showed us the format of the All Ords on Market Index using www.marketindex.com.au . We were particularly impressed with how much information for each share was shown on one page, without the necessity to change from one screen to another. We also looked at the highest yielding stocks as shown by Market Index for October 2019, these shares having a market capitalisation of >$1b and a dividend yield of >5%.

The final meeting for Investment for 2019 will be on Friday 6th December 2019 at 2pm in our U3A room.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the October meeting of Investment we heard about a book written by Nicholas Darvas titled “How I made $2M in the Stock Market”. Whilst the book related to the New York stock exchange in the period 1957-59, the objectives outlined were similar to many current investors aspirations. The use of his “box theory” together with a suitable automatic buy order and a stop-loss to minimise losses appeared to have merit.

The second topic for the afternoon drew on a paper written for the Actuaries Financial Services Forum in May 2018 titled “Seven major Trends affecting Australians in Retirement”. The topics covered included the loss of confidence and trust in institutions operating in the retirement income system, reducing home ownership, changing life and health expectancy, growing health and aged care costs, changing work patterns and decreasing age pension dependency.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 1st November 2019 at 2pm in our U3A room.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the September meeting of Investment we looked at the Reporting season in August and how it applied to a selected number of stocks. We noted that there was a modest growth in profits for most companies, the dividends in the majority of cases being slightly increased or just maintained. Perhaps this was a follow on from the increased dividends from some companies seen pre-Election.

We also looked at an article by Alan Hull regarding a group of infrastructure companies which continue to build value.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 4th October 2019 at 2pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Centre. 
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Margaret Jenkins

At the August meeting of investment Brian Vial spoke of the combination of low interest rates and the similarities between conditions before the GFC and the current state of the market. He illustrated his talk with the story of Mary, an Irish hotelkeeper who extended credit to her customers who were essentially unemployed alcoholics. The implications of this provided mirth but also showed what can happen when people are unable to repay their debts. One interesting facet of this talk was that in the days following Investment the market has had three sessions where there has been considerable selling off of shares and a substantial fall in the all ordinaries index.

The other segment that was considered at the meeting was some shares which had shown considerable growth during the year to date. However, these gains can be severely slashed if the market continues to adjust to unease in world trade conditions.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 6th September 2019 at 2pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Centre.
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Margaret Jenkins

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

At the May meeting of Investment one if our members, Brian Vial, gave an interesting talk on Superannuation and Self Managed Superannuation Funds. Brian covered the history of Superannuation dating from the time when Paul Keating was Treasurer, and mentioned some of the important changes which have occurred since then. Thank you Brian for a very informative talk.

The other topic for the afternoon was Exchange Traded Funds. This month we looked at a condensed version of the course on ETFs which is available on the ASX Website. This course is comprehensive and covers ETFs which are involved with shares and sectors of both the Australian and International markets as well as ETFs for Bonds and Commodities. We also mentioned associated information available on the Vanguard and Beta Shares Websites.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 7 June at 2pm in the U3A room at the senior’s complex.
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Margaret Jenkins 

At the March meeting of Investment we welcomed two new members to our group.

On a sad note, during the last month one of our members Noel Meagher passed away. Noel had been a valued member of our Investment group for three years and made many useful contributions to our discussions. We will miss you Noel.

The first three months of this year have seen an increase in the All Ordinaries Index. Hence we looked at a table of Shares worth Considering. There were a number of aspects to this table of over 20 individual shares which have been mentioned this year.  These factors included the yield, franking and return to shareholders over the last one and three years. Our members from their experience then added more stocks to the table which was very helpful to the group.

One of the events which happened in the past month is that the yield of the 10 year Treasury bond fell below the yield on a 90-day Treasury bill. This is an unusual event and we will be monitoring the situation to see if the yield curve inversion is maintained for a full quarter, not merely for a few days.

The other topic for the afternoon involved Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Recently there have been reports that ETFs have become more actively traded in the US than stocks. So we looked at an article which talked about Five Things to know before you invest in EFTs.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 3 May 2019 at 2pm in the U3A Room at the Seniors Complex.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the March meeting of Investment we looked at the February Reporting Season for a number of groups of shares. These included shares which showed a substantial price decrease for various reasons after they had reported; shares which gave shareholders a special dividend as well as the usual interim dividend; and shares that showed a substantial price increase after they had reported.

We also looked at the published results from a survey of 850 on-line viewers of Cuffelinks into reactions to the Financial Services Royal Commission. This survey covered how well viewers were satisfied with the recommendations of the Final Report as well as other questions such as whether the Commission should have addressed vertical integration by separating financial advice from product manufacture.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 5 April 2019 at 2pm in the U3A room at the senior’s complex.  
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Margaret Jenkins

At the first meeting of Investment for 2019 we welcomed two new members to our group, Helen and Mal Jeffrees and also Brian Trevana who had attended our last two meetings in 2018. We hope you all enjoy our discussions.

At the beginning of the session we acknowledged the uninspiring end to the Share Market in 2018. Then we looked at what CommSec saw as the prospects for 2019 and also what the Big Issues for 2019 were likely to be.  It is important to consider issues like this at the beginning of a year as these issues can influence which stocks are likely to show the most increases during the coming year.

We thank Brian Greed for suggesting our second topic for discussion which arose from the proposed Franking Credit policy of the Labor Party. With a Federal election likely by May 2019 at the latest this policy could have large implications on some retired member’s income through taxation changes. We discussed if there would be a demand for shares with unfranked dividends and also whether there will be more demand for growth companies that pay out less in dividends. It was a great discussion with Bill Parris using his mobile phone to clarify some points for us. 

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 1 March at 2pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Complex.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the December meeting of Investment we had a very interesting talk by Les Rodgers on a new technology which is being investigated by the ASX as a possible replacement for the current CHESS system. The CHESS system has been used by the ASX for over 25 years and is likely to be replaced in two or three years time by Permissioned Distributed Ledger Technology or DLT. This DLT system may provide a slightly shorter settlement period for trades as well as being more secure.

As a follow up to our November meeting we noted the outcome of the Rio Tinto share Buy Back. We mentioned that BHP was also having a share Buy Back and a Special Dividend in January 2019. We also noted that the Coles demerger from Wesfarmers had happened and looked at the price of the demerged Coles shares.

At Investment for interest and information we run a Monthly Share selection, members being able to select a share of their choice which they think will make the most gain in the next month. No cash outlay is involved. At our December meeting we congratulated Nola McDonald who won the 2018 Monthly share selection. Nola had several large paper wins and was awarded the usual bottle of marmalade, and this year also a U3A Benalla pen.  Unfortunately Nola was not at the December meeting but her prize was forwarded to her via Noel.

The Long Term share selection for 2018 which was a close contest was won by Margaret Jenkins with the runner up being Pauline Bailey.

The first meeting of Investment for 2019 will be on Friday 1 February at 2pm in the U3A room at the seniors complex. Please note that in 2019 the time has changed to 2pm.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the November meeting of Investment we examined the marked downturn in the Share Market during October 2018. We noted that there had been two distinct times, in the middle and also at the end of October where the Australian market followed the US lead and fell by nearly 3% in a day. Overall for October the All Ordinaries index fell by 8.2% and was at its lowest point for 2018 at the end of October.

Our second topic for the afternoon was the Buy Back of Rio Tinto shares which opened on October 9 and ran until November 9 2018. We examined how the Tender Price is calculated, and discussed what is meant by a Minimum parcel of shares for buying back as well as special conditions of the Buy Back. From understanding these terms it will be easier for members of the group to assess other Buy Backs in the future and whether they want to participate or not.

The final topic of the afternoon was the demerger of Wesfarmers which will be voted on by their shareholders in November 2018. Wesfarmers are a relatively popular share and the demerger of Coles from the conglomerate has caused quite a deal of interest.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the October meeting of Investment we discussed the presentation by Shaw and Partners, Stockbrokers from Melbourne, who spoke at Benalla on 18th September 2018.

We also looked at the interesting question of “Will rising US interest rates drive stocks down”? From the data shown stocks in the US had risen in 10 out of 11 cycles when interest rates in the US had been rising.

The final item for the afternoon was an article by Shane Oliver on “Five charts to keep an eye on regarding the global economy”. This article studied global business conditions, global inflation, the US Yield Curve, the US dollar and World Trade Growth. It came to the conclusion that on balance these indicators suggest the outlook remains okay.

Later in October we have observed an increased volatility in markets which will provide discussion for our November meeting which is on Friday 2nd. November at 1.30pm in the U3A room.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the September meeting of Investment we looked at a small number of shares from the August reporting season. We studied the main points reported by those companies, their reported net profit after tax and the dividend they had given shareholders. From their subsequent graphs we could see the effect these points had on their share price since they had reported.

The second topic for the afternoon was “Six things every investor should consider in their investment plan”. The subheadings for this included Investment goals, return expectations, exit prices, asset allocation, portfolio monitoring and rebalancing and responding to market events.

During 2018 we have been trying to cover a range of topics to interest the members of Investment Group. With this in mind we also mentioned the visit by Melbourne based stockbrokers Shaw and Partners on Tuesday 18th September 2018.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 5th October at 1.30pm in the U3A room.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the August meeting of Investment we took the opportunity to look at the End of Financial Year results for 2017-2018. For that period the All Ordinaries showed a capital gain of 9.1%, which was the best result on the Australian market for four years. Using our members combined knowledge of individual shares we put together a list of about 20 shares which had shown a better capital return than the All Ordinaries. 

Our second topic for the afternoon was a group of Upward Trending shares which had shown increasing share prices not only for the 2017-2018 Financial Year, but also through July 2018. We noted what the shareholder return was for these shares for up to 5 years, as well as their market capitalisation, dividend yield, franking status and the sector they belonged to.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 7 September 2018 at 1.30pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Complex in Fawckner Drive Benalla. 
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Margaret Jenkins

Investment had a break in July but will be meeting on Friday 3rd August at 1.30pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Centre, Fawckner Drive, Benalla.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the June meeting of Investment we looked at a short list of Oil and Gas Energy Shares which had shown substantial gains in 2018 to the end of May. Whilst most of these companies were small cap stocks, the giants of BHP and Rio Tinto also were included as they had gained very close to 40% for the year so far.

The other subject for the afternoon was Residential versus Commercial Property investment. We looked at the various types of property available to choose from, the importance of location, factors to consider when choosing an investment property, ways to enter the market, stability of the investment and taxation considerations.  Whilst the list of factors was reasonably simple it hopefully provided some information for thought.

We would like to thank John Gebauer who painted the area of the end wall of our U3A room in white non-reflecting paint. This is the area where the overhead projector shows the projected image from the computer, and the painting has eliminated the glare which we previously had to work with. John did this work for free as he says “U3A Benalla does good work in the community”, and we are grateful for his assistance.

Investment Group is having a mid-year break this year and is not having a meeting in July. The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 3 August at 1.30pm in the U3A room at the Seniors Complex in Fawckner Drive Benalla.
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Margaret Jenkins

With convenor Margaret travelling overseas in warmer climes, the Investment group has decided to take a break in July.  There will be no class on Friday 6th July.  Members still in town will almost certainly be found sitting by the fire at home perusing the Shares page in the newspaper and/or checking out the Comsec website on their tablets!