News Round Up

Liontamer extension, New capital protected fund, Calculating inflation.

Sunday, June 29th 2003, 11:03PM

Liontamer has announced that it is extending the closing period of its first offer, and that future offers won’t be as generous.

The current Liontamer capital protected product provides investors with 100% of the upside of the MSCI World Index.

"This investment was hedged with Morgan Stanley when seven year fixed rates (swap rates) were a great deal higher,” Liontamer’s Michael Lodge says. "If we were to repeat the offer right now, investors would not receive 100% of the upside of the MSCI world index. The participation rate would drop significantly."

Liontamer’s new closing date is July 11.

Westpac joins the pack
Westpac has joined the capital protected market with a six-year investment that is linked to a basket of the United Kingdom, United States, European and Japanese sharemarkets.

Investors receive the full rise in the sharemarket basket over the period and the bank also locks in the return (if positive) after the first three years.

Should investors want to receive some income they can choose to have 25% or 50% of their investment to receive an interest return of 5.10% instead of the performance return derived form the sharemarket basket.

Converting old prices
We’re all used to converting different currencies into New Zealand dollars, now, thanks to the Reserve Bank you can convert historical prices into today’s ones.

The bank has created a CPI inflation calculator that allows you to put the price paid back in history into a box, along with the year, then calculate today's equivalent dollar value, given inflation over time.

The calculator uses Statistics New Zealand's Consumer Price Index to calculate the difference in purchasing power for an amount of money between two dates, as provided by the user. The difference between the input value and the calculator's output value represents the effect of the inflation or deflation that has occurred over that time, as measured by the CPI.

Try the calculator here

LAST CHANCE: Special FPIA Offer
Register for the Financial Planners and Insurance Adviser Conference online before Tuesday and go into a draw to win a $50 book voucher from Good Returns.

This voucher can be used to buy any of the books listed in the shop including texts required for the financial planning courses at Massey, or it can be put towards your Asset magazine subscription/renewal.

Also if you enrol before the end of the month you will benefit from a lower registration fee of $495.

Good Returns is pleased to support this year’s Success Forum, which is being held in Rotorua from July 24-26.

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