Not long after I had invested in the STU rights offer, I started researching shares. I mainly started by watching youtube videos, one of which was by a New Zealander. This video referenced a new startup investing platform from Wellington, my home town.
The platform was called Sharesies. I looked into it and found out that I could start investing from as little as $5 and there wouldn't be any fees until I reached $50 in my account. I wasn't too worried about the fees, but I was keen to learn as much as possible. On the 27th of August, 2018, I decided to start at $50. Straight away, I invested $20 in the New Zealand Property Fund (NPF), $20 in the Emerging Markets Fund (EMF) and $10 in the New Zealand Bond Fund (NZB). I hadn't done much research at this point, I had still failed to learn from investing in STU, as the crash hadn't yet happened. I didn't even understand much about what a bond was.
Within a week, I was topping up my account, adding $2 a day. This gave me the ability to try out may different funds and options. At the same time, I started subscribing to various financial and other news outlets. My favourite news site was http://www.sharechat.co.nz/, which provided a good range of news about factors affecting New Zealand and the world. This was a great learning experience as I got to see how each fund performs with regards to the news of the day.
After a while, I found I was disappointed with the statistics and information that I was receiving from Sharesies. I decided that I would create my own spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel, software with which I am incredibly familiar due to my studies in engineering. This would allow me to increase my understanding of my economic situation and develop my excel skill and proficiency.
The spreadsheet I created started out as just a list of my shares and their current value. I began by updating this every weekend on Saturday. Over time, I added more and more, I included my bank accounts and calculated both the time- and dollar-weighted returns and made a wide range of graphs to show my performance.
I then signed up to Craig's Investment Partners (CIP), an investment banking firm. This allowed me direct access to the New Zealand markets, meaning I could buy shares directly on the market. It also gave me access to all the CIP research and QuayStreet funds. This was another big step in my learning and investment abilities, as I could look at several years worth of research for any company.
One note on what seems to be a recurring topic, before signing up to CIP, I believed I did my research into what my rights would be as an owner of shares through CIP. However, it was only later that I realised that I would not get invited to any shareholder meetings or be able to cast a vote and exercise my right. It turns out, CIP holds the shares as bare trustee in my name, but this allows them to use my shares to cast their vote however they wish.
Now, I don't wish to say that CIP is terrible or that this is a bad system, as they are the experts and would most likely make more informed decisions than me. However, I do not know if my votes are being cast in a way that promotes my interests and not CIP's. More transparency would be nice.
Daniel
